A Pocket Full Of Soul
by charrrr
Summary: Bluebell Williamson is a girl with a broken smile. She's had a tough year for many reasons and is just exhausted and depressed, tired of life. But her therapist thinks she is ready to face the world again so she's finally going home. Blue's terrified this isn't the right thing for her, that she should always be secluded away... Will Zed Benedict change her mind about that?
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: So this isn't the most exciting first chapter I could have written but I felt it was needed to round some things up from Love & War, as well as to just introduce you to Blue's and Zed's family and home lives.

Please read and review :) xo

* * *

**6th September 2013**

Her new bedroom was light blue; she hated the colour blue. Her new house was up on the ski slopes with acres of woods as a back garden; she was used to either the seclusion of Rosewood Rehabilitation Centre or the busy and noisy street her old house had been on. There was only one other house in the area, belonging to the Benedict family seeing as they owned and ran the ski slopes; she'd never been skiing in her life and the two houses were close together, with only a thin rowan tree separating them, that when she looked out of her bedroom window, she could see straight into a bedroom that had dark blue walls which meant they could see straight into her room. Ugh. Her father and sisters were thrilled with her being home; they were practically smothering her with love and attention, making sure that one of them checked on her every ten minutes as if she were a child incapable of looking after herself.

Blue should have been happy to be home, and she was, kind of... But she was also frightened. Frightened that her therapist was wrong and she wasn't ready to face the world yet. She'd gone to Rosewood in November 2012 and it had felt like a lifetime when she was in there. But she really wouldn't have minded staying longer. What if the pressure of going back to school and dealing with all the gossip and not being in hiding, made the _incidents_ happen again? What if it would be worse this time and she'd go crazy? Due to the loss of her soulfinder, Blue's mother Judith had lost her mind and was now in a psychiatric hospital. And her aunt Nora was a mentally ill murderer. Insanity ran in the family, what if she were next? Nobody would really be surprised, would they? She'd turned seventeen last month- that was still considered young in most places of the world, and she felt too young to be dealing with all this rubbish that was being thrown at her.

She went over to the row of bookcases that covered an entire wall of her bedroom, running her fingers along the spines of one row as a smile grew on her face. Reading was her favourite thing to do, simply for the reason that she could escape from her world and lose herself in somebody else's, becoming close to the characters and getting emotional when something bad happened to them. Elliott had brought all of her books from the old house here along with the books she'd taken to Rosewood, and had even spoilt her by buying at least fifteen new books to occupy her free time.

"I knew you'd like the books," Elliott said from the doorway.

"I do. But you didn't have to spend so much money on me dad," she replied, turning to look at him. Elliott wasn't her biological father but he'd been a dad to her all of her life so she wasn't going to stop calling him dad no matter what happened. "I know that you don't have that much money." Which was the truth. Although Elliott had been proved innocent, his boss had fired him and claimed it would be bad publicity to have him working there. Elliott had looked for other jobs but nobody wanted to associate with someone that had been in prison. Blue had complained about this to Victor Benedict - who had been visiting her since April and now felt like a good friend, or even a big brother, to her - and he'd gone away and talked to his family; he'd got Elliott a job working at the ski slopes but it still didn't bring in that much money. The Benedict family even owned this house and were helping them out by letting Elliott rent it for cheap, having said that savants should help each other out and they thought Elliott was worthy of their help.

"Nonsense," Elliott waved a hand in the air. "I had some money saved up and me and the girls all thought that you deserved a special something as a welcome home gift."

"You mean on top on top of the 'Welcome Home' banners, the balloons, and the buffet of my favourite foods that are downstairs?" Blue raised her eyebrows. She was unhappy about coming home in certain ways, but she couldn't help smiling when she was around her family. They really did make everything seem like it would be okay.

"Of course," Elliott laughed. "Come downstairs, Blue. Don't hide away in your bedroom, we want to spend time with you. Poppy's brought down her Despicable Me DVD, we all know you love that film."

Blue hesitated and awkwardly said, "I think I'd rather just stay up here in my bedroom."

"Blue, you've spent the past ten months or so in a bedroom on your own. You're out of there for a reason: they think you're ready to get back to your old life."

"Well it's not exactly my old life, is it? We're in a new house, mum's in a psychiatric hospital and you've been in prison. I feel like it's not even a good life to come back to," she answered honestly with a sigh. "Part of me feels like I should just go back to Rosewood so I don't have to deal with all these changes. I'm not good with change, dad."

Elliott came over to her and wrapped his arms around her as tears began to spill down her cheeks, surprising Blue as she hadn't even realised she was crying. "But change is good sometimes honey," he said as he let go of her and brushed a tear from her skin. "And I know everything seems like a mess right now but I promise things will get better. We'll _make_ this a good life, okay?" Blue nodded silently. "So. Despicable Me?"

"Sure," she smiled. "As long as I get the marshmallows to myself."

Elliott laughed. "And there's the Blue I remember. Welcome back, princess."

* * *

Zed laughed at Xav's joke, the room filled with the laughter of his family too. All of his family were at the house, having the first family meal they had had in months. It was at Karla's insistence that they all turned up today and they all knew they couldn't say no to her. Trace and his wife Georgie had even brought both of their children along with them: Georgie was sat across from Zed, somehow holding and feeding baby Mark - named after Georgie's late father - a bottle with the same hand, while using her free hand to eat her own food, and Gracie was sat next to Zed.

He looked down at the nine year old and saw her frowning at her plate as she moved the food around, taking a bite now and again. "Hey," he bent forward so he was at eye level with her. "What's wrong with you, moody? You should be happy, you're next to me, your favourite uncle."

That usually made Gracie laugh seeing as she didn't have a favourite uncle but liked how they were all competitive over it, but it didn't even get a smile out of her this time. In fact, she didn't even react to his words at all. Trace, who was sat across from Gracie, must have noticed this because he spoke up. "Zed, just leave her be. She's been in a mood all day because we grounded her and won't let her go to her friend's birthday party."

"But everybody's going, it's not fair!" Gracie protested, pouting. "I didn't even mean to hurt Mr Harris. I only thought about it, I wasn't actually going to."

"What did she do?" Zed asked, Gracie's words making him curious. "Who's Mr Harris?"

Georgie answered him. "Mr Harris is our next door neighbour. He has a dog who barks all night long and keeps Mark up so Gracie decided to confront him about it. When he told her that he couldn't do anything to shut his dog up, Gracie used her powers to create a huge gust of wind that knocked him halfway across his garden and he hit his head, getting a bad concussion. We had to make up a lie about freak weather happening around here to explain how that happened."

"Well at least he got rid of the dog because he realised how annoying it was. And I didn't mean to hurt him, it just happened! I didn't even try and use my power," Gracie argued.

"Trace," Yves interrupted, he and the rest of the family now listening to the conversation, "maybe she just needs some help in controlling her gifts. Controlling the elements is a powerful gift, it must be hard to keep control of it. I was the same at her age, grounding her isn't the right thing to do."

"Yves, we're her parents and we decide how to punish her. You may be right and in that case you can give her lessons about control if you don't mind, but she still needs to know that her attitude and behaviour is wrong. End of discussion, okay? Let's talk about something else."

Out of the corner of his eye, Zed saw Victor and Hazel whispering to each other at the end of table, Hazel nudging Victor and him shaking his head. Hazel was a lovely girl, already like a sister to Zed, but it had rather been a mess how she had joined the family. She had been dating Uriel at first, until she found out that Victor was her soulfinder, and she'd eventually moved back to London, where she was from. Victor had gone after her in April though and Hazel had moved into Victor's apartment in Denver. It was still awkward when they were in the room and Uriel was too, but everybody was slowly getting used to it. Zed watched Hazel smile smugly as Victor stood up, leaning on his crutch. After being shot in February, Victor had had a shattered hip and he'd had to have an operation on it- for a while it had been okay, but in May he'd fallen onto the hip whilst doing a job and he'd damaged it again. Now he had to use a crutch for support when he walked and was having physiotherapy sessions. Victor had took it hard, now having to do office work instead of going out on missions like he was used to, but he was putting up with it so he didn't hurt himself even more.

Victor cleared his throat once he was stood straight, drawing the family's attention to him. "Well, I guess that's my cue to change the subject. Plus, Hazel's forcing me to be the one to tell you even though I can't understand why she can't tell you all."

"Oh just tell them," Hazel rolled her eyes. Zed smirked; Victor and Hazel had the kind of relationship where you argued constantly about small things but still loved each other at the end of the day. It was always amusing to see.

Victor smiled and shook his head, the news apparently too important to argue with his girlfriend over. "Okay, okay," he said. "Everybody, we have an announcement to make. Hazel is four months pregnant. With twins."

"Oh!" Karla was the first to respond, jumping from her seat in shock. She moved around the table and pulled Hazel into her arms, kissing her head. "Oh, congratulations! I mean, I'd prefer for you to be married first, but I guess that can come later."

The rest of the family voiced their congratulations' but fell silent when Uriel pushed his chair back and stood up. Zed's eyes widened and he prepared himself to be able to jump up to his feet at a second's notice to stop Uriel if he let his jealousy get the better of him. Looking around, he noticed that the rest of his family were all looking at his brother in the same way too. Uriel was a peaceful and calm guy but he was still a Benedict: everyone in the family could go explosive if they got angry enough. And this was enough to get Uriel angry: it was obvious to them all that he was still in love with Hazel, so he had a reason to get angry over the fact she was pregnant with his brother's babies.

But Uriel surprised them all. He walked over to Victor and clapped his hand on his back, giving him a hug before smiling at both Victor and Hazel. "Congratulations," he said, sounding sincere. "I'm happy for you both, I really am."

Everybody relaxed, breathing sighs of relief and the rest of the meal was eaten with light discussion and a calm environment. Later, Zed was in his bedroom, dropping flakes of fish food into his large fish tank of tropical fish. He'd left his bedroom door open which let Victor walk straight in. "Thanks for knocking," Zed said sarcastically, turning to look at his older brother. "What do you want?"

"Hazel and I are about to head home but I need to talk to you about something first," said Victor, folding his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorframe. "I need you to do a favour for me."

"Depends what it is," he grinned in reply.

"Blue Williamson left Rosewood today. You know that I've been visiting her, someone other than her family for her to talk to. She's a sweet girl Zed, but she's... Vulnerable. She's going back to school on Monday and well, I'm worried about how it'll go for her. Will you look out for her for me? Just make sure nobody gives her tough time."

The last time Zed had seen Bluebell Williamson, she was rather a large girl who used to mope around the school without any friends. Zed knew that she had been bullied, sometimes even by his own friends, but he'd never even spoke to her. He didn't bully people... But he didn't really do anything to stop others from bullying, as bad as that sounded. Back then, he wouldn't have dared talk to the 'biggest loser' in the school as other students had called Blue, because being popular was something he'd always been and he liked it. Talking to her would have effected his popularity status. He knew that made him sound like a complete idiot, but this was his way of surviving high school and it had worked for all of his brothers.

But with Victor asking him to look out for Blue, Zed didn't even consider saying no just for the sake of his popularity. He didn't know why she had been at Rosewood, but he knew about the problems her family had had this year and he felt sorry for her. She didn't deserve to have a tough time at school as well. Plus, Zed wasn't heartless- he would look after anybody that needed it. So he answered Victor by saying: "Of course. I'll definitely look after Blue at school, I won't let anybody give her a tough time. Don't worry, Vick."


	2. Chapter 2

**9th September 2013**

Zed laughed as his best friend - an average height guy with curly, light brown hair called Isaac - threw the football across the room to one of their other friends who were cheering and encouraging the behaviour. The noise in the classroom was loud, filled with the chatter and laughter of the group of students as they waited for their teacher to come back into the classroom. It was morning registration, but they would also have their first lesson in here seeing as Mr McCune was their English teacher too. The teacher had let them into the classroom before disappearing to get a copy of the register because his laptop wasn't working.

Isaac, who was sat in front of Zed, turned around in his seat to face his friend. "Party at mine on Saturday, my folks are out," he grinned. "You gotta be there, man. None of this 'family issues' thing like the last few times. My cousin's bringing a load of her friends from the all-girls school in Denver, and her friends are _hot. _It's gonna be epic, tell me you're not gonna leave me hanging."

Zed returned the grin, already nodding his head along. Isaac's parties were always great and he never failed to give everybody a good night. Sometimes they got a little out of hand but that's what made them so fun. Zed had missed the last few parties because of savant problems, but also because his mother hated Isaac and knew how his parties usually went. But if Zed planned ahead now and behaved well for the rest of the week, he had no doubt his mom would go soft and let him go to the party. "Course I'll be there," he said to Isaac. "And just how hot are these girls you're talking about?"

Isaac laughed loudly but quickly went quiet, as did the rest of the class, when Mr McCune walked back into the room silently. For a teacher, the old grump didn't talk that much. However when he did speak he was strict as hell - albeit, he was a good teacher but still - and everybody was pretty scared of him. Registration was always the same, every day: they'd enter the room and sit in their seating plan, Mr McCune would do the register in silence, simply looking around the room to see who was or wasn't here, and they'd stay in silence for the full twenty minutes unless he told them to talk amongst themselves. He simply had an aura about him that made people know they shouldn't mess with him. Well that, plus the fact he gave detention to as many students as he could even for a small thing.

His chair creaked as he sat down, his wiry frame sitting up straight. He pushed his black-rimmed glasses up his nose and started going through the register, his head lifting every now and then to find a student. A minute later however, he paused and put the register down when there was a knock on the door.

The door opened and blocked Zed from being able to see who was there but a moment later he heard the familiar voice of Mr Joe who worked at reception. "Mr McCune, good morning," he said in a cheerful tone. "I thought I would escort Miss Williamson here seeing as it's her first day back. It is your registration group that she's joining, yes?"

Mr McCune nodded and smiled in the direction of the door. It was very rare that he smiled thankfully; his smile always made him look even more cruel and intimidating somehow. "It is yes," he said. "Bluebell Williamson, it is lovely to have you back in our group. I'm sure your old classmates will be just as thrilled to have you back," he shot a sidelong glare around the room, knowing full well that most of them used to bully Blue in registration as well as other lessons of the day. "Thank you, Mr Joe. I'm sure Bluebell will be fine now. Bluebell, if you would like to sit in the back next to Zed, that's the only seat free, and I'll add your name to the seating plan. Welcome back."

"Bluebell Williamson?" Zed heard Gina whisper loudly; it was the kind of whisper that carried around the whole room so everybody could hear. Gina Mariana was the 'Queen Bee' of the school and was obviously gorgeous with her red locks and curvaceous body. She had had a string of boyfriends but didn't make it a secret that she had a huge crush on Zed. She was always trying to get his attention and although he admitted she was attractive, he had never even thought about dating her. She just wasn't his type- he preferred blondes to be honest. "Fatty Blue is back?" Gina giggled. "I'm surprised we didn't feel the ground shaking with her walking down the corridor. Poor Zed, having to sit next to a beach whale." Her friends - or minions as Zed thought of them - laughed quietly at her teasing.

"Silence," Mr McCune snapped. "Gina, you have a lunchtime detention. No arguments or complaining. Bluebell, sit down."

"Good luck on your first day back Bluebell," Zed heard Mr Joe say. "Have fun."

Blue stepped into the room as Mr Joe shut the door behind her. The whole class - including Zed - stared at her in disbelief. Surely that wasn't really the Bluebell Williamson they had all been going to school with since they were young children? She looked completely different! She was no longer a large girl who dressed in unflattering large t-shirts and baggy jeans with frizzy blonde hair to her shoulders. She'd always been small height-wise and that hadn't changed, but now she was skinny too. So skinny that it almost looked unhealthy- her collarbone jutted out and her waist was tiny with a flat belly, although she had a slight curve to her hips and her breasts were the perfect size - not too big and not too small. Not that Zed paid any attention to that when it came to girls (heavy sarcasm, of course). She had pale white skin and golden blonde hair that was tied up into a messy bun on the top of her head. The weather outside was bright and warm so she was wearing a red, floral print jumpsuit that cut off mid-thigh and had paired it with a pair of dirty Converse. Her blue eyes were wide as she looked at all of the staring faces; she looked terrified and Zed noticed that her hands - which were clutching a plain black over-the-shoulder bag - were shaking uncontrollably.

Feeling sorry for her, Zed pulled the chair next to him out from under the table. As it scraped across the floor loudly and broke the silence, Blue jumped and snapped out of her shock. She quickly walked through the gaps between the tables to the back of the classroom and sat down next to Zed, avoiding his eyes and looking down at the table. Still, the rest of the class stared and Zed couldn't blame them. He was still staring at her himself. It had only been ten months since she left school (everybody had been told she'd gone to live with her aunt, but Zed knew the truth about her being at Rosewood thanks to his brother) so this was certainly a drastic transformation. She was small and dainty now, and Zed finally realised that she was beautiful although he doubted she knew that.

"Okay, talk amongst yourselves until the bell for next lesson goes," Mr McCune said with a tired sigh. Finally, everybody looked away from Blue and turned to chat to their neighbour, talking in hushed whispers and glancing back at Blue every now and then- clearly they were talking about her and how different she looked now.

Zed cleared his throat and said, "hey. I'm Zed, Victor's brother. It's nice to meet you."

Blue looked up at him with a frown on her face. "We've been in the same classes since we were three years old. You're not just meeting me now."

"Well no, but this is the first time we've properly talked," he replied, shifting awkwardly in his seat and gulping. He didn't want to frighten or anger the poor girl, but it seemed like that was all he was doing. "Anyway, Victor asked me to look out for you so if you need anything, just let me know. It's fine, I don't mind."

"Well that was nice of Victor but I don't need or want your help with anything so just forget it," she said bitterly. "Just leave me alone... Wait, does that mean Victor told you where I've been?"

"Yes, he-"

"Great," she snapped. "Look, if you tell anybody I swear to God..." Her threat hung in the air between them. She didn't seem like the nice, vulnerable girl that Victor described her as. She seemed feisty, fully capable of defending herself even though just a moment ago she'd literally been shaking in fear. Which was the real Blue?

"Don't worry," Zed said gently. "I won't tell a soul, I swear. Your secret's safe with me, it's not my place to tell anybody. Besides, Victor's already told me plenty of times that he'll kill me himself if I tell anyone. He's real protective of you."

Blue seemed taken aback by this, as if the thought of someone being protective of her was surprising. "Oh. Well uhm, thanks for not telling anybody."

She looked away then and angled herself in the chair so that she partly had her back to him and didn't look at him again. Zed took that to mean that the conversation was over.

* * *

Walking home from school with Daisy, Blue couldn't stop thinking about the day she had had. Of course, she hadn't made any new friends and honestly, not much had changed whilst she'd been away. Gina and her minions were still ruling the school and Zed Benedict was still the school heart-throb and the most popular guy there. Everybody stared at her all day, wondering how on Earth she could look so different after not even a year away. They whispered as she walked past, her paranoia ringing loud in her ears; she just knew they weren't saying nice things about her.

The only thing that had changed was that a few of the guys had started paying attention to her. Their attention was unwanted. She didn't get a thrill out of being ogled at, nor did she need them to offer to carry her bag for her. She was perfectly capable of doing that herself, she hadn't broken both of her arms for crying out loud. Besides, the guys that were giving this attention to her were just a few of many students that had bullied her before she'd gone to Rosewood. Did they think she would just forget about that because they were being a little nice to her because of the way she looked now? And it was just typical that they were friends with Zed Benedict.

Zed Benedict. Where did she even start with him? No, he had never bullied her but he'd just stood by and watched as all of his friends did. What kind of decent guy did that? She hated him for trying to be so polite to her today when he probably knew full well that there was no chance of them two ever becoming friends. Why would Blue want to be friends with someone that let his friends bully her and occasionally even laughed along at their teasing? She also hated that he knew about her stay at Rosewood. The popular crowd at school were rarely ever nice people so she wouldn't be surprised if Zed told everybody her secret just for the fun of it. Him swearing not to tell anybody was not reassuring to her.

Daisy brought Blue out of her miserable line of thoughts by asking, "so how was your first day back at school?" She smiled up at her sister, looking hopeful that nothing had gone terribly wrong.

Not wanting to worry or upset Daisy, Blue smiled back at her. "Yeah it was great," she lied. "Nobody in my classes was horrible to me, it was a lot better than last time."

"Oh good!" Daisy exclaimed. "I'm so glad things are getting better for you, Blue."

By the time they got home, Elliott was just returning from picking Poppy up and Blue repeated the same story to him. She had a feeling that he could tell she was lying so she quickly headed upstairs to her bedroom before he could question her any further. She really didn't want to have to tell him that school was still bad; it would cause him to unnecessarily worry about her.

She threw her backpack onto the floor and wandered over to the bookcase, browsing the shelves for a good book to lose herself in. Once she'd chosen a book - one that she had read countless times before even though she had plenty that she'd never read - she walked over to the window, planning to open it and let in some fresh air.

Without meaning to, she looked across at the Benedict house and the bedroom that was straight across from hers. She saw somebody moving about in the bedroom a moment before they strolled past the window but looked up and stopped when they saw her stood there. The light brown skin, dark hair and blue eyes, along with the high cheekbones and tall figure, were all completely familiar to her. Rolling her eyes with a groan, she shook her head in disbelief. _Typical, _she thought to herself. _Zed _would _be the one with the bedroom that looks straight into mine._

She quickly opened the window before pulling the curtains closed as Zed just stood there and looked at her still. Once the curtains were closed and she didn't have to see him anymore, she relaxed and walked over to her bed, sitting down on it so that she could read comfortably.


	3. Chapter 3

**10th September 2013**

Only the three youngest Benedict brothers still lived at home with their parents after Will had recently moved into Victor and Hazel's new house until he got his own place. Despite this however, mornings were still very eventful. Xav and Zed argued every morning - neither one of them were morning people and they took that out on each other - which annoyed Yves. All this went on whilst Karla made breakfast because Saul was already out on the slopes setting things up for the day so he couldn't make the food himself.

This morning was certainly no exception to the others. As Zed nursed a sore head (he'd stole a slice of Xav's toast and his brother had retaliated by hitting him), he slouched into a chair at the dining room table and looked over at Yves who was tying away on his laptop. "What are you working on?" He asked with a mouthful of the stolen toast.

"A new Apple security app. Just updates and stuff, you wouldn't understand," Yves responded nonchalantly.

"What's that meant to mean?" Zed exclaimed. "Why wouldn't I understand?"

Yves rolled his eyes. "Don't be so touchy, Zed. I didn't mean it as an insult, it's just the truth- you don't know about codes and such. Anyway, to change the subject... Your year are having that mini baseball tournament thing today, aren't they? Bet you're glad about that, so you don't have to have any normal lessons for the morning. Just lessons in the afternoon."

"Yeah," he grinned and nodded, his slight anger towards his brother now gone. "It's not in the league or anything so I don't have to hold back, it's not going into the newspaper and there are no scouts there. It's gonna be great, it's girls against boys."

"Well good luck," a deep and husky voice said from the doorway. Victor walked into the room using his crutch and leaning heavily on it, and sat at the table, a half eaten apple in his hand. He took a bite of it, looking like he'd only just woken up although he was fully dressed and had his hair neatly tied back. He usually liked to keep his hair at shoulder-length but it was now past his shoulders - apparently he was growing it a little longer because Hazel preferred it that way and he wanted to please her - but that wasn't a problem at work as long as he kept it tied back and out of his face.

"What are you doing here?" Xav asked, now on his fifth slice of toast. "It's well too early for you to have driven here."

"I only live ten minutes away now, remember," Victor rolled his eyes, reminding Xav that he no longer lived in an apartment in Denver. He'd wanted to be closer to the rest of the family so he and Hazel moved into a three-bedroomed house in Wrickenridge which meant all the Benedict's now lived in the town apart from Uriel (he still lived in his flat in Denver).

"Whatever," Xav shrugged. "Did you stay the night? Didn't here you coming in."

Victor winced. "Yeah I came up at about midnight. Hazel kicked me out."

"What did you do?" Zed asked with a smirk.

Victor looked awkward as he replied. "I may or may not have made a comment to Hazel about the weight she's putting on with the pregnancy... I meant it as a compliment, she still looks lovely, but she took it completely the wrong way and blew up at me. She told me to leave her alone for the night so I came here. I have a lot of groveling to do."

"Well it serves you right," Karla said with a tut as she walked into the dining room with another plate of toast. She placed it in front of Xav so Zed leaned forward to grab a slice. "You should never mention a pregnant woman's weight to her, especially when her hormones are all over the place, whether you mean it in a good way or not. Poor Hazel, I don't blame her for kicking you out for the night! I suggest going out and buying her something nice, then apologize to her and tell her how beautiful she is, okay?"

"Thanks mom," Victor replied. "You're right. I've got the day off today so I'll go shopping this morning."

"An engagement ring would be a brilliant present," Karla said casually with a sly tone to her voice.

"Mom. I've told you, stop pressuring us; we'll get married when we think it's the right time."

"She's pregnant and you're soulfinders, why isn't now the right time?" She raised her eyebrows. "Victor Benedict, you give the girl a damn ring at least before she gives birth."

Victor laughed and shook his head, knowing that he was not going to win this battle. Nobody could ever win against Karla Benedict. To change the subject he looked at Yves and Zed and asked, "do you two want a lift to school? I'll pick you up later as well, I have nothing else to do. Hazel's working all day."

They both said yes and finished off their breakfast, rushing to get ready for the school day. Zed threw on some jeans and a shirt - they were on his bedroom floor so he wasn't sure if they were clean or not, but he didn't care - and threw his shorts, a tee, and trainers into his bag to change into at school before they started playing baseball for the morning.

By the time they left the house, they were running late. Yves hopped into the front passenger seat so Zed slid into the back, clicking his seatbelt into place. Just at Victor started the car, he saw two blonde figures leaving the house next door and lowered his window before calling them both over. Blue and Daisy Williamson came over to the window. Zed's eyes drifted to Blue and he wasn't disappointed with her outfit: her plain white t-shirt clung to her and was see-through enough that he could tell her bra was purple, her shorts showed off her legs and she had Converse on her feet. Clearly she'd decided not to change at school and he guessed her clothes for the afternoon were in the bag she carried.

"Hey Victor," she smiled. She seemed like a completely different person compared to the miserable girl Zed had met yesterday. "It's nice to see you again."

"You too," he replied kindly. "You settling in back at home okay?" She nodded. "That's great. Do you and your sister want a lift to school? I'm driving these two there so it's no bother."

Blue looked into the back of the car at Zed and the smile fell from her face. "No, that's okay. We can walk, we normally do."

"Yes but we're running late," Daisy pointed out. "Just get in the car, Blue. I don't want to be late to school, I have a big test first lesson."

Blue sighed loud enough for Zed to hear and pulled open the door, sliding over into the middle seat as her sister got in beside her. Victor set off and the silence in the car was almost deafening. Blue's bare leg was pressed against Zed's, as were their arms, because of how squeezed in together they were, and Zed could feel the warmth radiating from her.

"So. Baseball today," he said to a start a conversation. "Are you looking forward to it?"

"You know what I used to look like. Do you really think I looked like the type of girl that would be into sports and exercising?" She asked sarcastically. "I'm dreading it. I don't even know how to play baseball, never mind be any good at it."

Zed tried to stop himself from smiling at that comment. "But you don't look like that anymore," he pointed out the obvious. "So you must have done some sort of exercising, how else would you have lost all that weight?"

Looking straight ahead, Blue tensed up and she stiffly said, "I don't want to talk about that. Drop it."

"Okay, okay," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. "Well I'm amazing at baseball, the best in the school. You'd have no chance of winning anyway."

She didn't reply or speak again for the rest of the car ride.

It was the most awkward journey to school Zed had ever experienced and considering Victor had said he'd drive the girls home too, for once Zed wasn't looking forward to leaving school.

* * *

Whoever decided to cancel lessons for the day and replace them with baseball must be stupid, insane and deserved to fired in Blue's opinion. She despised any kind of sport and any kind of activity that entailed exercising and moving about. She wasn't coordinated, she couldn't run without looking like a complete idiot and she got out of breath and hot and sweaty after about five seconds. This was a personal kind of torturous hell for her.

Each gender of the year group had been split up into three different teams, leaving six teams to compete with each other. The first two teams went up against each other and the winner stayed on the pitch to play the next team, etc. She was slowly learning the rules and had figured out that it was basically a more complicated version of rounders. Stupid. Why couldn't they just make it easy?

She was in a miserable mood as she sat in the bleachers, watching the games pass by because she had nothing else to do. Zed's team was up first against a girl's group; Zed and his team won, with Zed clearly being the best player. Blue was kind of sad that he wasn't messing up even once; she would have liked to have something to tease him about in the car on the way home. His team won the next two games as well so they were the ones that Blue's team were up against when it finally came to their turn.

Her team was pitching first and Blue somehow chose the perfect spot to stand in on the field. She was behind two other girls on her team and whenever the ball came their way, one of them caught it and Blue didn't even have to try. Which was lucky for her team's sake considering the whole 'no coordination' meant she couldn't even catch a damn ball.

The second half of the game however did not go as well. Somehow she ended up third in line to bat. When it was her turn, one girl was on third base and one was on second. Both of them had hit the ball on the first try but Blue predicted that she'd get a strikeout with no hits of the bat. And even worse for her: Zed was the pitcher.

He grinned as she nervously approached home base with the bat in hand and faced him sideways. He had to change the hand he was throwing with because she was left-handed and therefore facing the opposite way, but he still looked confident in his abilities nevertheless. Before she was even ready, he threw the ball.

In a panic, Blue swung the ball with a squeal, no doubt looking and sounding like an utter loser. "Strike!" The person behind her shouted as he caught the ball before throwing it back to Zed who caught it effortlessly.

Not wanting to be hated by her team, Blue steadied her hands to stop them from shaking so much and kept her eyes on the ball, trying to focus. Still though, she didn't hit the ball when Zed threw it and another "Strike!" was shouted out.

Flushing red in embarrassment - another thing she hated about sports: it just humiliated those who weren't any good - Blue prepared herself for the third and final pitch, a sinking feeling in her stomach. She wouldn't have minded so much if it didn't mean that she would be the first person in her team to get out. This was going to be all kinds of unpleasant. She knew that it was only a game but who actually wanted to feel that way?

When she looked over at Zed, she saw a thoughtful expression on his face. A moment later, his voice entered her mind, unwelcome. _"Don't stress," _he said to her in a soft and gentle voice. _"Look, you're swinging too early, that's why you aren't hitting the ball. Swing when I tell you to." _He prepared to throw the ball, his eyes locked with Blue's, before pulling his hand back and throwing. Blue didn't even look at the ball, she was too busy staring at Zed and wondering why he would help her when all she'd been was rude to him. Granted, he annoyed her so that was an obvious reaction from her, but still. Should she trust him or was he just planning to make an even bigger idiot out of her? She didn't have time to decide because he shouted _"Now!" _into her mind.

Her body reacted before her mind did; it seemed like her body trusted him as it instinctually swung the bat. _Crack! _The noise echoed around her as the bat connected with the ball and went flying, over Zed's head and past him. Blue was frozen at first, staring in disbelief. Had she really just hit the ball? And a good hit at that?

"Run! Blue, run!" She heard various members of her team shout out as Zed's team scrambled to collect the ball and get it back to home base. Startled from her teammates' shouting, Blue started to run. She tried to block all of them out and just ran for her life, forcing herself not to even think about the fact she was running. She knew that if she did think about it she'd stop considering when she usually was forced to run it wasn't exactly a run- it was more of an awkward waddle like a penguin's, her arms waving about in the air. She ran past first base, looking ahead to see the two girls that had been at second and third now running on too. As she passed third base, out of the corner of her eye she saw Zed catch the ball and turn to throw it at home base.

With a screech, she sped up her running and hit home base with her bat less than a second before the guy caught the ball. As Blue's team cheered about her home run, she walked back to her seat on the bleachers on shaking legs and practically collapsed, breathing heavily. She was pretty sure she was _this_ close to dying of a heart attack after that.

Thankfully, Zed's team ending up winning the game anyway - which basically meant her miraculous home run was all for nothing, yet she was still proud of herself even if Zed had helped out - and ended up winning overall too. Blue didn't care though; it felt like it took her the rest of the entire morning to recover from the running she'd done.

* * *

Author's note: I really struggled with this chapter, mainly because I know absolutely nothing about baseball. I googled most of it but if any of it is still wrong, I apologize. But it's the longest chapter so far, yay!

Also, the part where Zed helps her bat is sort of a tribute to Finding Sky when he helps her in football :)

A hint about the next chapter: Blue makes a friend.

Please review xo


	4. Chapter 4

**10th September 2013**

After the baseball matches had finished the students headed off for dinner before they went to their afternoon classes. Blue sat down at an empty table in the canteen and pulled on her headphones, pressing play on her ipod- the soft melody of All About Us by He Is We and Owl City came into her head. Instead of paying for school meals, she had brought her own lunch: a chicken salad and a packet of crisps with a bottle of water. She tucked into the salad, lost in her own little world and ignoring those around her.

She hated sitting on her own. She had been so lonely at Rosewood that she'd ended up helping out with some of the children that were there for either their own reasons or because their parents were there, just so that she would have some company. It was lonely being on her own but she would rather be lonely than hang out with people she didn't like. And to be honest, she hadn't met anybody that she liked at this school. They were all the same idiots she'd known before Rosewood. She'd seen Daisy and knew that her sister would have let her join her and her friends, but Blue didn't really want to sit with a bunch of thirteen year old giggling girls.

She forced the depressing thoughts out of her mind and focused on listening to the song, a technique her therapist had taught her for when things got hard or too sad for her to deal with at that moment. She was broken out of that moment however when she felt somebody tap her on the shoulder. She took her headphones off and looked to the seat next to her where somebody had sat down.

It was a slim girl sat there. She had mousy brown hair and a pale complexion, and was wearing rectangular-framed glasses which made her plain brown eyes look bigger than they were. She was grinning at Blue, revealing red braces running across her teeth. She didn't seem even vaguely familiar. "Hi Blue," she said in a cheery voice. "I'm Trinity. Trinity Axel. It's a weird name, I know." She rolled her eyes. "It's great to meet you."

"You too," Blue replied, her words sounding like a question. "I don't think I've seen you before. Were you here before I went out of town?"

"No I moved here from Boulder about two months," she smiled politely. "Anyway, I have a confession to make. I didn't just come over here to say hello. I came to ask you something." Blue looked at her questioningly, waiting for her to continue. "My friends and I are on the school's cross country team. We'd like you to join us."

Blue snorted, she actually snorted. "This is some kind of joke, right?" She asked with an amused smirk.

Trinity frowned in confusion. "Why would it be a joke?"

"Because I hate exercise and that obviously includes running. I run like an idiot: I'm not coordinated and my arms fly about everywhere. Why would I willing choose to run cross country?"

"Blue, I'm in the same year group as you. I was there this morning playing baseball, I saw you running when you got that home run. You were amazing! I don't know what you think you look like when you run, but you're wrong. You have the perfect body frame for running, I think you'd be perfect on our team."

"Trinity, I don't enjoy running. I'm sorry," she shrugged.

"No that's okay," Trinity smiled. "I was exactly the same, I hated it. But I joined cross country to make friends and I actually found out that I liked it. It's the perfect way to let loose and forget about everything going on in your life."

"Well I do need something like that," Blue said hesitantly, thinking that she needed another method other than music and reading to take her mind off it. Plus, her doctor had said that physical activity would be good for her health and these days she was all about being healthy and not going back to her old ways. "But I don't know whether or not I'd like it..."

"Well you can come to training and see then!" Trinity grinned enthusiastically. Blue was struck with a guess that Trinity was one of those girls that were always cheery and optimistic. Basically, she was the exact opposite of Blue. "We train every Wednesday and Friday after school. We meet out on the field and we run through the woods and some footpaths. There's eleven people on the team, most teams that compete actually have twelve so everyone would love to have you join us. So, you'll be at training on Thursday?"

Blue paused for a moment before nodding. "I guess. But I'm not promising to join the team, I'm just deciding whether or not it's something that I'd like to do."

"I understand, that's fine. This is awesome! Anyway, do you want to come and sit with me and my friends? There's six of us and they're all on the cross country team too."

"Why would you ask me to sit with you? Nobody else has."

"Because it's obvious you have no friends," Trinity replied matter-of-factly. "And that's what it was like for me my first few weeks here. These kids have all grown up together, they don't like including people into their groups. I know how much it sucks, Blue. And I can't stand seeing people alone and miserable, especially when they look like really nice people. So let's be friends, okay? Even if you decide that cross country's not for you. Everybody needs a friend."

"Thanks," Blue smiled gratefully. She knew they weren't three years old and 'let's be friends' didn't automatically mean they were going to be friends for life. She might get to know Trinity more and decide she didn't like her, they might argue and have an epic fall out. But this was a start at a friendship and Blue could really do with a friend, even if she couldn't tell her the whole truth about herself, and right now Trinity looked like a nice girl, somebody that would make a good friend. She packed away her lunch into her bag and rose to her feet before following Trinity over to the table where her friends were sat.

* * *

Somehow Blue ended up in the middle seat next to Zed again. But she didn't let that get to her. Since dinnertime she had been in a pretty good mood, especially when she realised that Trinity was in all of her afternoon classes and the other girl chose to sit with her in all of them. It wasn't very often that Blue found herself in a good mood and she wasn't going to let the likes of Zed Benedict ruin that for her.

Daisy was the last to get in the car and Victor started driving as soon as she had buckled up her seatbelt. "How did your test go?" Blue asked Daisy, knowing that she had been worrying about it.

"I think I did okay actually," Daisy smiled. "It seemed quite easy, hopefully that was a good thing. What about baseball? Was it as bad as you expected it to be?"

"Worse. I hated it," she replied immediately. "I scored a home run though."

"Only because I told you when to swing," Zed interrupted with an amused smile. "If it wasn't for me, you would have had three strikes. And even with my help, your team still lost. You know you never did say thank you, Blue."

_Do not let him ruin your good mood_, she said to herself. She flashed Zed a sarcastic smile and said, "you might have helped me hit the ball, but you didn't help me hit it that far. Nor did you help me run. I scored a home run because your team members couldn't even catch a ball and sort themselves out enough to work together and get the ball to home base. A bunch of boys couldn't even beat me. So I don't think I owe you a thanks, Zed."

Zed was silent for a moment before he burst out in laughter. "Wow, you've got an attitude on you, girl! Not the innocent shy girl I thought you were, are you? You do have a point though. You did well, I was impressed. I've never seen somebody run so fast before. And don't ask me to repeat that because I don't give out praise often."

"That's true," Yves said from the front seat. "He still hasn't congratulated me on creating an app for Apple."

"Yes I did," Zed argued.

"Well thanks, I guess," Blue said to prevent the brothers from having an argument. "You're the second person today to say that I ran well. A girl called Trinity Axel asked me to join the cross country team."

"I'm on the cross country team. You should totally join and we could like totally run together, it'd be such a good bonding session," he replied, the second sentence being said in a fake girly voice, clearly taking the piss. "I'm the team's best runner."

"Wow, you sure like to brag about yourself."

"I'm great at sports and I'm proud to admit it, what's wrong with that?" He waggled his eyebrows. "So are you going to join the team then?"

"You should join them Blue," Victor said sincerely. "They're currently the best team in Colorado, although that could all change when competition season starts again. The whole town is in on it, a lot of us go and cheer them on, even when they're competing elsewhere."

"I don't know. I'm not really into running that much but I promised Trinity I'll give it a go," Blue shrugged.

"Ah, Trinity," said Zed, shaking his head. "That girl gets on my nerves. There's just something about the way she's always smiling that's just so irritating. I don't like her."

"Well I guess that's another reason for _me_ to like her," Blue said with a fake grin on her face.

"Oh ha-ha. Very funny. Hey Blue, guess what? I'm really happy that you and Trinity are getting along, maybe that means you'll finally have a friend! One person in the entire school being your friend is better than nothing, right?"

Blue's smiled faded and she frowned, her good mood dissipating in the blink of an eye. She looked away from Zed, unable to look him in the eyes. "Zed," Victor said sternly. "What the hell was that about? Would it really freaking kill you to be nice to somebody for once?"

"Vick all I've done is try and be nice to her!" Zed snapped. "I've tried, I was being genuinely nice to her. But right from the start she's judged me and hated me and made sly digs. I'm sick of it. If she can't be nice to me, I'm not going to be nice to her."

"You're both being ridiculous," Victor said in a tired voice. "How about both of you just shut up from now on, yeah?"

Blue wasn't going to argue there and from the silence that fell in the car, neither was Zed.

* * *

Victor and Hazel's house was situated on an ordinary street. Their neighbours were mostly elderly couples so it was a very quiet area which they were thankful for. The house was lovely, decorated just how they wanted it, and had a sizeable garden with a white-picket fence. It was a perfect little house that Victor had been surprised Hazel wanted as she hadn't struck him as the kind of girl to want something like that. They knew that eventually they would have to move out and into a bigger house seeing as though they had decided they wanted two more children after they had the twins. But for now, the house was everything they wanted and needed.

Victor took a deep breath to prepare himself, not knowing what kind of mood Hazel was going to be in, before entering the house and locking the door behind him. He'd kept his word to his mother and gone shopping after dropping the kids off at school and hadn't returned home for the whole day. Hazel would have arrived home from work about an hour ago so no doubt she was wondering where he was.

He steadied his crutch and walked through to the kitchen where he heard the clatter of plates. Hazel had her back to him and was doing the washing up; she must have heard him enter but she didn't turn around or acknowledge his presence in any way. He walked over and leaned against the kitchen counter behind her, putting his crutch next to him and crossing his arms over his chest. "Sorry I'm home late," he broke the tense silence. "I picked Zed and Yves up from school, as well as Blue and her sister. Then mom asked me to fix something 'cause dad was still working and couldn't do it himself." Still no reply from her. "Hazel, come on. I said I was sorry and you kicked me out for the night. Isn't that enough? Please, you know I didn't mean it like that."

Hazel dried her hands on a hand towel and spun around to face him, her mouth in a flat line. She was already showing signs of the pregnancy which was one of the reasons they'd told the family: her belly was slightly round, her hips and thighs were a little wider, and her face was rounder. "You called me fat," she said bluntly.

"I didn't say those exact words!" Victor shook his head. "I said that 'even though you've clearly put on weight, I don't mind and you still look great'. I meant for it to be a compliment!"

"Well I didn't need you to remind me that I'm putting on weight and losing my figure, Victor! God, I was already feeling self-conscious, I didn't need my soulfinder to make me feel even worse about myself," she said in a trembling voice as if she were holding back tears. She composed herself and took a long breath in. "I missed you last night. I didn't get any sleep without you there."

"How do you think I felt? I was in my childhood bedroom, it was just weird. I missed you as well. Come here," he beckoned for her to come close. She did so and he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head as she wrapped her arms around his waist too. "I really am sorry, you know. I should have said that I think you're beautiful no matter what, and that I love you. I'll remember that for next time," he joked.

Hazel laughed. "Yeah, you better. I forgive you, Vick."

"Good," he smiled and let go of her, causing her to step back and look at him questioningly. "So I wanted to buy you something, you know just a little something to treat you with and make you forgive me even more." He gulped, his heart pounding as nerves took over him. "I was going to get you a new necklace or something, but well... My mom kind of told me what to get you and even insisted that she go shopping with me for it. But don't worry, it's not like she forced me into getting it or anything. I've actually been saving up to get you it since we started dating."

"Victor, what are you going on about?" Hazel asked with a laugh. "You know I like presents, just give me it." Victor laughed and dipped his hand into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a small, black velvet box. Hazel's eyes widened and she looked up at him. "That's not what I think it is, is it?"

"It probably is," he replied in an an amused tone. He slowly opened the box so that she could see the ring inside. It was a white gold band with a sizeable heart-shaped pink diamond with three smaller clear diamonds on either side of it. It had cost Victor a fortune but the moment he'd seen it he just knew that it was the one for her. It also helped that Karla used her future sense to see that Hazel would love it.

Hazel gasped lightly, her eyes flickering back up to his so he could see that she had tears in her eyes. "Vick..." she softly whispered, her lower lip trembling.

When Victor spoke, he was also whispering, as if speaking louder would ruin the moment. "I'd get down on one knee like I'm supposed to but I don't want to hurt my hip." The physiotherapy sessions were really helping him get better, as was Hazel's support, but it still hurt every now and then and he couldn't walk far without the help of the crutch. He smiled at Hazel and asked, "will you marry me?"

It was very rare that Victor saw Hazel speechless and this was one of those rare moments. She bit her bottom lip and smiled, happy tears spilling down her cheeks as she nodded eagerly. She stepped close to him again and threw her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck. Victor grinned and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly for a moment before she pulled away from him and held out her left hand. He laughed and took the ring out of the box before sliding it onto the correct finger, loving the way that it looked on her. "So beautiful," he muttered.

They hugged again in content silence for a long few minutes before Hazel lifted her head so that her mouth was near his ear. "Take me to bed," she whispered.

"Happily," he replied huskily.

* * *

Author's note: I wasn't going to write that end part about Victor and Hazel seeing as this is Zed and Blue's story, but I missed writing about them and couldn't miss out on the opportunity to do so again, hope you don't mind :)

This chapter is longer than my usual ones, it took me so long to write and I worked so hard. I'm happy with the way it turned out.

By the way, I have now decided to be a Betareader and I'm currently accepting requests. So check out my Beta page if you feel like you might want/need a Beta or message me and I'll check out your story, see if I want to help you out :) (Shamelessly self-promoting myself, haha)

**A hint about the next chapter**: Blue's first cross country training. Zed and Blue have a big confrontation.


	5. Chapter 5

**11th September 2013**

_Why am I doing this? Why am I getting ready to torture myself and bring upon some kind of heart attack from exhaustion? Exercise is the worst form of punishment I can imagine for myself, this is going to be terrible._

These thoughts were running through Blue's mind as she stood in a circle with the school's cross country team and Coach Miller, a man in his thirties with dark hair who seemed quite supportive of his students. He went through a selection of stretching and warm up techniques with the group – which those themselves made her feel tired, never mind the actual running – but only for Blue's sake seeing as the team already knew the techniques by now. The team consisted of Trinity and her friends: three girls and two boys whom Trinity introduced as Hannah, Bekah, Jodie, Lucas and Charlie. Zed had turned up with the rest of the team, all four of whom were boys who looked as athletic as he did and Blue remembered them as being popular. Three of them had bullied her pretty badly, as had Trinity's friend Jodie, but not one of them made even an attempt to apologize to Blue despite knowing she might become a member of their team. She wasn't disappointed however, she hadn't expected an apology of sorts anyway.

Once they'd warmed up and stretched their bodies they all crowded around a spot where a red flag was stuck in the ground on the field they were on. "This is where we're starting off," Trinity explained to Blue. "We run one lap around the field where the markers in the ground are, then we run up the footpath into the woods over there," she pointed the direction out, "and just follow the markers for the rest of the course before eventually coming back here. Coach times us and makes a note of what our time is so we can try and improve it or compare it to past times."

"Don't worry if you can't keep up with us though," Jodie said in a sickly sweet voice. She was a tall girl, far taller than Blue, with long chestnut brown hair and a beautiful face. "We've been this school's team for three years now, we know each other's strengths and weaknesses and we're all very good."

"Blue's a good runner too Jo," Trinity defended her. "You weren't at school yesterday so you didn't see the way she ran in baseball. She was pretty good."

Jodie scoffed. "Yeah, I find that hard to believe."

"I hate to admit it but Trinity's right," Zed's voice came up behind them as he left his friends and joined them at the other side of the group. "She's good... But not as good as us," he threw an arm over Jodie's shoulders and laughed. "I don't reckon she'll be able to keep up."

Jodie laughed and snuggled into Zed's side, batting her eyelids at him. She was clearly attracted to him and attempting to flirt. It made Blue feel like she wanted to be sick. "Enough goading the new girl," Coach Miller said. "Come on, get in your starting places."

The group rearranged themselves in a certain order that made no sense to Blue so she just hovered by the edge of them, feeling awkward and out of place. Zed was first on the other side with Trinity second and Jodie fifth. Blue wondered if maybe their order had something to do with their ability or speed? It was probably something like that, she decided.

Coach Miller blew his whistle at the same time as starting his hand-held timer and the group set off running. Zed immediately shot ahead of the others into the lead and Blue was straight away lagging behind, running at a slow jog compared to the others. Coach Miller had told her to take it easy at first so she could get into 'the zone' as she ran so she was following his instructions. Well that, plus she still didn't believe she was a good runner. She saw Jodie speed past Trinity and look back, laughing when she saw how far behind Blue was.

Feeling fuelled by Jodie and Zed's teasing and like she needed to prove them wrong, Blue focused on looking at the markers in the ground as she passed them and completely blocked out the world around her, including the runners on the team. She forgot that she hated running and that actually really helped- not thinking about it made her muscles stop aching and made her get her breath back as if it had all just been in her mind all along. She simply let her body take over and she found that it was actually rather enjoyable once she did that. All the problems and worries she had were eliminated from her mind and a smile came onto her face, the feeling of having nothing bothering her welcome and being new to her.

She wasn't even paying attention to her surroundings although after a short while she felt the soft ground of the field disappear and it was replaced by the uneven ground of the woods. The small triangle-shaped red flags that were marking the course were in the woods too and her eyes stuck to them so she didn't get lost.

"Blue! Hey, Blue. Hang on a sec." The voice made her slow down and she turned around to see Zed coming up behind her. The only reason she stopped was because she was unsure how she'd overtaken him when he had been in the lead. Had he fallen behind and was now in last place? Surely she couldn't have overtaken the whole team... "You're in first place," he told her as if knowing what she was thinking. Was he one of those savants who could read minds? She wondered. "Yeah I am," he answered her unspoken question with a cocky grin, stopping a step in front of her.

"What do you want Zed?" She asked impatiently, not in the mood for putting up with his cockiness and arrogance.

"There's no need to be rude," he frowned.

"Rude? You're the one that humiliated me back there by taking Jodie's side! You know what, you're just like the rest of them. All the people that bullied me last year and made me feel like complete shit. I thought you'd be different, that you'd be nice like your brother, but you're not," she snapped, forcing down a lump in her throat. "Why can't you just let me be? Let me try and be happy."

"Don't you dare compare me to bullies!" Zed argued. "I'm not like them."

"You're on your way to being like them though. And you never stopped them from bullying me in the past. Look, do you really think now is the right time to be talking about this?"

"It's not like anybody's going to catch up, they're far behind us," he shrugged. "And I think we need to talk about this. I'll start off first, okay? I'm sorry for what I said back there with Jodie, it wasn't fair of me to say that. I just... I've tried with you, Blue. I tried being nice to you and it didn't work, you still snapped at me."

"I snap at everybody!"

"Well how am I supposed to know that?" He ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated. "Blue, you're complaining that you don't like the things I say to you, but how do you think I feel? I don't like having you be sarcastic and nasty to me either. It goes both ways, it's not all about you."

"Why can't you just leave me alone then?" She exclaimed.

"I don't know! Maybe because Victor wants us to be friends or because we're both savants or because we live next door to each other... God, I don't know. I just feel like it's important we're civil towards each other, I feel like we have some sort of connection."

"Well I don't feel that," she replied not unkindly.

"I know, I can tell," Zed said. "I don't like being horrible to you but if you're not going to make the effort to be nice to me then why should I even try with you? I've said that I'm sorry, there's nothing else that I can do. Can we at least try and be friends, especially seeing as you're going to be on the team now?"

"What if I don't want to be on the team?"

"Trust me, after this Coach will force you to be on the team. We've been looking for a twelfth member and you're apparently better than all of us," he smiled at her a little.

Blue paused for a moment. In the end she decided that things would probably be a lot easier if her and Zed called a truce, part of her saying to just give him a chance because she felt like she owed it to Victor after the support he'd given her whilst she was at Rosewood. "I guess we can try and be friends."

"Sounds good," he smiled properly this time. "A new start. That sounds like the best thi-" His voice cut off when they heard a scream come from shortly behind them. "Wonder what that was," he mumbled and headed back through the trees to find out.

With a sigh, Blue followed. It wasn't just curiosity that spurred her to do so but a personality trait of wanting to help people if they needed it. Zed and Blue followed the sound of the voice shouting for help and ended up finding Jodie on the floor, clutching at her ankle. What was strange to Blue was the fact that Jodie wasn't crying- surely somebody that was hurting that much would be crying? _She's so full of shit, _she thought to herself bitterly as Zed knelt down beside Jodie.

"What happened?" He asked the girl.

"I tripped over and twisted my ankle," Jodie replied, flexing her right ankle and moaning in pain. "Oh it really hurts, I don't think I can move Zed. Could- could you carry me please? Just to where Coach is waiting so he can get me to a nurse?"

"Yeah sure," Zed nodded. When Blue scoffed he looked up at her and asked, "what is it?"

"You know she's faking, right?" She raised her eyebrows. "Are you really so naïve to believe her?"

"I'm not faking!" Jodie gasped, the gasp being far too dramatic for the situation. She clung onto Zed's biceps as he picked her up bridal-style. "Zed she's lying, what an idiot."

"Whatever," Blue said, shaking her head, completely done with dealing with Jodie. "Zed, it has nothing to do with me. You fall for her lies, that's fine by me. From what I remember about the type of girls you date, she's just your type so maybe now that you're her 'hero' you'll have an epic love story with her."

"What is your problem?" Jodie spat the words at her. "You don't even know me or Zed. You're just a loser, you always will be. Come on Zed, let's just leave her here."

"It's fine, I'm leaving anyway. I know my way home through the woods from here," Blue said. "Make sure to tell Coach that I've decided not to join the team please. Neither of you will have to put up with me being in the way, don't worry."

Jodie smiled smugly but Zed looked unhappy. "Blue, I-"

"It doesn't matter." She didn't understand why it was bothering her so much that Jodie seemed interested in Zed but she didn't want to think about that. She didn't even care about Zed, if he wanted to believe Jodie's lies and get pulled into her trap that was fine with Blue. It wouldn't be much of a change anyway- she remembered Zed being the kind of boy to be a bit of a 'player' and he only dated the popular girls with the perfect bodies. The cheerleader types, basically.

She turned around and ran away from them, no longer following the direction the markers laid out. When she was younger her father would take her hiking in the woods so she knew her way around like the map was imprinted in her mind.

"_What's wrong with you?" _She felt Zed create a link between their minds less than a second before she heard his voice. _"She's hurt, I'm just being a nice guy and helping her out. We're a team, that's what we do. I can tell her to back off and leave you alone if you want. I doubt she means to be this horrible to you, she probably just thinks it's some sort of joke. Calm down, Blue."_

Calm down? Strangely enough, Blue _was_ calm. Maybe that was an effect of the running, she thought to herself. She honestly couldn't care less about what was going on between Zed and Jodie and she knew that Zed was just trying to be nice and help out like he'd said so himself. What was annoying her was how he was actually defending Queen Bitch Jodie and thought that she was innocent. _"Interesting choice of friends you keep around you," _she replied through the link. _"__Look I've changed my mind. I don't think we should be friends, let's just try and stay away from each other. I think that's probably the best thing for both of us."_

"_Blue. You're-" _Expecting some sort of lecture from him about how ridiculous she was being, she quickly cut off the link and put shields up around her mind, picturing impenetrable walls so he couldn't create a link again.

Glad that that was over, she again let her body take over and ran all the way home without struggling for breath once.

Turns out that running was actually something that Blue enjoyed. Who could have guessed?

* * *

As soon as Zed got home, he stomped up the stairs and ignored Karla shouting out to ask him what was wrong. Normally he showered nearly straight away after cross country training but today he simply went into his bedroom and collapsed onto the bed, his legs dangling off the side. Staring up at the ceiling, he sighed loudly and put up shields around his mind before he started thinking things through so that his mother wouldn't overhear anything.

He thought back to that moment when Blue spoke to him through the telepathic link. He'd nearly dropped Jodie to the floor but had managed to get a tighter grip on her just in time. His heart had expanded as soon as he heard Blue's voice and his mind lit up, so bright that it gave him a flash of a painful headache. The pain disappeared within a second however and was replaced by a loving warmth. The link between their minds was stronger than anything Zed had ever experienced and as if it were alive it whispered one word into his mind: _"soulfinder." _Tears had sprung to his eyes but he quickly blinked them away. His entire being felt happier than it ever had in his life, happier than he'd ever imagined being. He'd known it then, known it deep in his heart and felt it heavily in his soul.

Bluebell Williamson was his soulfinder and from that moment on he would do anything for her, even take a bullet for her.

He'd tried to tell her, to let her know the amazing and shocking news, but she'd cut off the link before he had the chance to. He'd attempted to form a mental link with her again but she had up the strongest shields he'd ever felt before. Not even Victor, whom had always had stronger shields than the rest of the family and was always the best at getting through over people's shields, wouldn't have been able to get Blue's mind she was that strong.

Zed had contemplated going to Blue's house before his own so that he could tell her they were soulfinders but he was terrified of how she would react. They'd got off to a bad start and had both been pretty bitter towards each other, winding each other up and sometimes taking it too far. She probably hated him. He wouldn't blame her after the way he had treated her recently and the fact he never stopped people from bullying her in the past. He had a lot to apologize to her for and he knew she was so stubborn he might even spend his whole life trying to apologize and get on her good side again.

Would telling her about the connection between them be the right thing? Of course he knew that she had a right to know that her soulfinder was living just next door to her but he also knew that if he told her now, she would reject him. Right now she thought he was an arrogant bastard who could be a bully at times and who had something going on with Jodie (which he didn't, it was purely just a friendship between them). She wouldn't want him as a soulfinder, she'd reject him and never give him the time of day again.

But if tried to win her over before he told her they were soulfinders... He might have a chance to prove himself and her finding out about the soulfinder thing would be just as happy a moment as every savant pictured it to be, not a moment of disgust and disappointment on her behalf.

_That's it, _he thought to himself. _I have to show Blue the real me and prove to her that I'm good enough for her. I have to make her fall in love with me on her own instead of her making her feel like she had no choice but to because of the soulfinder bond. I have to make little Bluebell – a girl who is stubborn and depressed, bitter and sarcastic, yet beautiful and talented and kind-hearted – fall in love with me. This is going to be hard. But oh so worth it._

* * *

Author's note: I've started a new story about Victor and Hazel's daughter- A Life Of Love and Loss. The first chapter is up now, go give it a read and leave reviews if you want :)

**A hint about the next chapter:** Zed and Blue both attend Isaac's party.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's note: Please read and review! Hope you like it :)

* * *

**14th September 2013**

Music blared from an expensive stereo system in Isaac's large house. Well it was more like a mansion, really; his parents must have had successful jobs that brought in a lot of money. Isaac was one of the guys on the cross country team that had arrived at training with Zed, so he had invited all the team along to his party. Trinity had in turn invited Blue, who hadn't wanted to go but had forced herself to- she'd decided that she wanted a normal life from now on and didn't normal teenagers go to parties and have fun? She was going to try her best to enjoy herself tonight, whether she liked the majority of people there or not.

She was wearing a white tee with a backless cut-out that was slightly see-through so her red bra was seeable as well as a pair of super skinny grey jeans and red Converse. Daisy had insisted on doing Blue's hair and make-up and making it look nice seeing as she hadn't made much effort with her outfit. She normally wore her golden blonde hair tied up but Daisy had made her leave it down and had curled it in gentle ringlets. She had dark eyeshadow on along with fake eyelashes and thick eyeliner, and was wearing a bright red lipstick. The eye make-up made her bright blue eyes stand out more. When Blue had looked at herself in the mirror after Daisy had finished with the make-up, she had barely even recognized herself.

Trinity had arrived in a taxi to pick Blue up seeing as she didn't know where Isaac's house was. Elliott, who was unused to Blue going out to parties, had contemplated giving her a curfew but hadn't- they both knew that she wouldn't want to stay out 'til the early hours of the morning anyway. Blue could tell that her dad was simply happy that she finally had friends and was finally getting invites to stuff.

Trinity and Blue were now stood by the fireplace with Hannah and Bekah, slowly sipping from red cups filled with some sort of alcohol and juice mixture. It was the first time Blue had even had alcohol because it just didn't interest her but she wanted to be normal and her friends were drinking so she didn't want to be the odd one out. "So where exactly were you the past year, Blue?" Bekah, a dark skinned girl in a pink dress, asked politely. "I know you were staying with your aunt, but where abouts were you staying?"

"Just on the outskirts of Denver," Blue replied with a casual shrug. "Nowhere special."

"Oh my god," Hannah said in a disgusted tone. "Have you seen what she's wearing?" The other three girls looked over to where Hannah was looking. Stood in the doorway of the living room and talking to a few other people was Jodie. Her hair was completely straight and she was wearing a slinky red dress that showed far too much skin with high heels that had silver studs on them. Blue had to admit that Jodie looked 'hot' but it was ruined by the fact it looked too slutty for her age and she knew how good she looked. "God, she looks like such a slag."

"I thought you lot were friends with her," Blue said.

Trinity scoffed and shook her head. "It's sort of complicated, really. I mean, we sometimes hang out with her and we class her as a friend but we don't like her all that much. It's a love/hate friendship I guess you could say, I'm sure Jo feels just the same way." Blue felt slightly happy about that. She'd been slightly unsure as to what kind of person Trinity was if she was friends with the likes of Jodie. "Oh here he is, the one that Jodie's trying to impress. When is she going to get the hint that he doesn't want her?" She laughed.

She was talking about Zed Benedict. He entered the living room through another door – it was big enough to have two leading into it from the lobby – and looked around, probably scanning the room for his friends seeing as half of the people here didn't even go to their school. His eyes drifted past the girls once before looking back at them, zeroing in on Blue. His lips turned up at the corners in a small smile and he started to stride across the room towards them.

"What is he doing?" Blue asked nervously with wide eyes. "Why is he coming towards us? He's not going to talk to us, is he?"

"Why do you sound so scared?" Bekah asked with a laugh. "Zed's alright."

"I don't like him," she replied. "We just don't get along."

"Why not?" Bekah asked. Blue was saved from answering however when Zed reached them. "Hey Zed."

"Hey Bekah, hey girls," Zed replied, giving each of them a friendly smile before looking down at Blue. "Hey Blue. You look," he breathed out before finishing the sentence, "beautiful. You look beautiful."

Blue frowned, wondering why he was being nice to her after what happened on Wednesday which was followed by two days at school of them point blank ignoring each other. "Thank you?" She replied, her words sounding like a question in her confusion. She really couldn't put up with his constant mood swings anymore.

"You're welcome," he smirked, amused. "I didn't know you were coming. You should have said, I could have given you a lift; I'm not drinking tonight so I'm fine with driving."

"Doesn't matter. I caught a taxi with Trinity," she replied.

"Isaac's looking for you," Hannah, a tomboy with blonde hair, told Zed. "I think he's in the kitchen."

"Right, cheers H. See you around girls," he gave them all a final smile before walking away, disappearing into the crowd.

"Well that was awkward," Hannah said. "I think Zed sees your relationship with each other in a different way than you do. He didn't seem to think you don't get along. Do you know each other outside of school or something?"

"It's a long story," Blue sighed lightly. "Our families kind of know each other, it's complicated. Plus we live next door to each other."

She quickly changed the subject to avoid any more talk of Zed and somehow ended up joining a large group of people that were in the lobby area of the mansion, dancing. Bekah and Hannah were doing over-the-top dance moves whilst Trinity and Blue were much more reserved and Blue – whom usually wouldn't be seen dancing in public at all – found herself laughing along with them and genuinely enjoying herself. _I finally have good friends, _she thought to herself in delight. _This is great._

They spent over an hour dancing together and drinking still, Blue feeling like a part of the group and like she had been friends with the girls for a long time. She really was having fun and she was glad that Trinity had invited her to come along.

She watched as Bekah and Hannah danced up against each other before Hannah grabbed hold of Bekah's face and pressed her lips against hers. Bekah giggled and wrapped her arms around Hannah's waist, turning the kiss into a full on make-out session. Blue looked at Trinity questioningly and the other girl shrugged before shouting, "they're both lesbians but they're not a couple. 'Bout time they were though," she called over the music before laughing and pulling Blue away, giving the two girls as much privacy as they could have whilst surrounded by a group of classmates and strangers. "Come on, let's get another drink! I want to end up so drunk tonight that I feel dead in the morning!"

Blue laughed and followed Trinity into the large kitchen, going to the fridge that was holding all of the drinks. As Trinity started to make a mixture of about five different alcohols (Blue wondered if maybe she was trying to poison them both or something), Blue felt an itching at the back of her neck as if she needed to turn around.

She slowly turned around and paused in shock. Zed was leaning against one of the kitchen counters, his hands holding the edge as he faced the person in front of him: Jodie. They were talking, both smiling, until Jodie stepped forward and ran her fingers up Zed's chest. His smile faded but he didn't stop her. Then Jodie leaned in and pressed her lips against his.

Before Blue even realised what she was doing, she had rushed out of the kitchen. She heard Trinity shouting her name but didn't go back in. She rushed out of the house and into the front garden, greedily breathing in the air in a panicked state. She thought back to the sinking feeling in her stomach she'd felt when she'd seen Jodie kissing Zed and realised... She was jealous.

_What is wrong with me?! _She despised Zed; he irritated her beyond belief and she had never been attracted to guys that were as cocky and self-obsessed as he seemed to be. She was still angry that he never stopped his friends from bullying her and she still judged him from the company he kept. The fact that he was fine with Jodie kissing him was just more proof of how much of an idiot he was. She shouldn't be attracted to him, she shouldn't like him, she shouldn't be jealous that he was kissing Jodie... But she was. This fact made her furious but she would be damned before she let Zed know all of this. Nothing was going to change with him, she wasn't going to try and make more of an effort with him. She was going to keep these idiotic feelings she – for reasons that she couldn't comprehend or understand at all – had for him buried deep down inside of her and she was going to do her best to never remember them again.

"Blue?" Trinity was calling her name from the doorway. "Are you okay?"

Blue forced a smile onto her face, hoping that it convinced her friend that she was fine. "Yeah, I just needed some fresh air. Let's get to work on getting so drunk we feel dead in the morning," she joked. "I want to forget everything."

Trinity grinned and dragged her back inside, agreeing that they needed to get drunk and just have a good time.

* * *

Jodie lived right at the edge of Wrickenridge, quite a drive from Isaac's house, so it took Zed longer than he would have liked to drive her home. After Jodie had kissed him and he'd pushed her away as soon as his mind registered what was going on, Jodie had apologized straight away and said that she had probably just drank too much alcohol. Zed believed her seeing as he didn't think she would kiss him whilst sober so he'd offered to drive her home before she drank even more and did something stupid.

He knew that taking her home was the right thing to do, especially because they were friends, but what he really wanted to do was run straight after Blue. He hadn't even known that she was in the kitchen until he'd heard Trinity calling Blue's name and he'd just caught a glimpse of her escaping through the doorway. He wondered if she had seen Jodie kissing him and whether she was upset about that. He doubted she had been upset, she'd probably just left the kitchen for another reason.

He thought about going straight home but felt like he _needed_ to go and find Blue, explain that he didn't kiss Jodie. It was obvious that Blue didn't like Jodie so if she thought he had been kissing Jo, that would just give her another reason to dislike Zed. He wanted to make Blue feel special, he wanted to make his attraction to her known. He wasn't in love with Blue, he didn't know her well enough for that yet, but he certainly liked her and the fact they were soulfinders was something that made his feelings for her even stronger and more evident in his mind. He had to prove to her that he didn't like Jodie in that way; he had to gain her trust.

So, he headed back to Isaac's party. By the time he got to Isaac's house, nearly two hours had passed since Jodie kissed him and it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. Zed's parents usually gave him a curfew of one, especially when it was one of Isaac's parties, but tonight they had told him to be back by two so he wasn't worried about getting home in time just yet.

He pushed through the crowds of people as he entered, looking around for Blue or for anyone that might be able to tell him where she was. It took him a moment until he saw her but he finally did. He actually saw Trinity first and then Blue beside her. Blue was dancing with a bottle of vodka in her hand that her Trinity were passing back and forth between them as they each took gulps of it. Issac was behind Blue with his hands on her waist, both of them moving to the rhythm of the music together; it looked like Isaac was kissing Blue's neck and she was just giggling away and letting him.

Overcome with a rage of jealousy, Zed stormed towards them and grabbed hold of Isaac's shoulder, pulling him away from her. "Dude, what the hell?" Isaac shouted. "Can't you see we're dancing?"

"Fun's over," Zed said angrily to his best friend. "I'm taking Blue home."

"No you're not," Blue slurred, looking unsteady on her feet. Clearly she had had too much to drink. "You're not the boss of me, Zed Benedict!" She pointed at him with the hand that was holding the bottle and the bottle slipped from her hand, smashing on the floor. "Oops!" She started to giggle. "We're going to need another bottle."

"I'll get one!" Trinity shouted loudly and stumbled away in the direction of the kitchen.

Isaac took a step towards Blue again but Zed pushed him away. "Leave her alone, Isaac. I'm taking her home." Before Blue could protest or try and get away from him, he easily lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder, keeping a tight grip on her legs so she didn't fall as he pushed his way through the throngs of people again. Blue screamed at him to put her down and smacked her fists against his back but Zed didn't acknowledge any of it. Not only was he jealous that she had been dancing with another guy so closely like that, but he didn't like that she was so drunk. It just wasn't in Blue's nature from what he knew about her and he didn't like the thought of her getting so drunk that she did something she would regret in the morning or she decided it was a good idea to walk home on her own in the early hours of the morning. If he'd left her at Isaac's in a state like that, he would hate himself forever.

He unlocked the car, holding onto Blue with one hand, before opening the passenger side door. He put her in the seat, glad that she didn't try to get away as soon as he sat her down. She folded her arms across her chest, pouting and silently sulking. He reached around her to fasten the seatbelt before slamming the door closed and walking around to get into the car himself, pulling on his own seatbelt.

He set off back to their houses. The car ride was silent for the first ten minutes and he couldn't stand it so he was the first to speak. "I'm sorry for being so controlling," he said. "I didn't mean to be like that, that's not what I'm usually like. I just feel protective of you and I couldn't leave you there that drunk. Besides, Victor would have killed me if he knew about it. You're like his little sister in his eyes."

Blue didn't say anything to his words, instead choosing to answer with something off subject. "I don't care that you're dating Jodie," she said, shrugging her shoulders overdramatically in her drunken state. "It's not like I'm jealous or anything, 'cause I'm not. Nope. Not jealous at all. You date her; that's great for you. She's really beautiful."

He hesitated for a moment. She was saying that she wasn't jealous but it sounded like she actually felt the opposite. Or was Zed just imagining that he heard that in her voice because it was what he wanted to hear? "I'm not dating Jodie," he finally said. "I pushed her away when she kissed me."

When Blue didn't reply he looked over and smiled when he saw that she was asleep, her head resting against the window. She looked so peaceful and young and happy, a side that he was yet to see in her whilst she was awake. When he pulled up outside of their houses, Blue still wasn't awake so he decided to let her sleep. At least this way she wasn't telling him how much she hated him.

He lifted her out of the car bridal-style and walked to Blue's front door and rang the doorbell. The door opened just a second later, revealing a tired-looking Elliott; his thoughts told Zed that he had been up waiting for Blue to return home. "What's wrong with her?" He asked immediately.

"She had a little too much to drunk," Zed replied. "You shouldn't blame her, all her friends were drinking too. I'm sure she just didn't want to be left out. As soon as I realised she'd had far too much to drink, I decided to bring her home. She fell asleep in the car."

"Well I'm not happy that she was drinking but I expected that there would be alcohol there," Elliott answered. Zed gently handed Blue over to Elliott, making sure that he had a strong hold of her before letting go. "At least she had fun and wasn't in her bedroom alone all night. I'll talk to her in the morning about it. Thanks for bringing her home Zed, I appreciate it."

"It was no trouble. Goodnight Mr Williamson," he smiled before turning around to go to his own house, ready to collapse onto his bed and welcome sleep.

* * *

**A hint about the next chapter:** Blue has a visitor.


	7. Chapter 7

**15th September 2013**

"Hands off," Karla reprimanded Zed, hitting his hand away as he tried to dip a finger into the cake mixture. "This is for the dinner tonight, everybody's coming over again."

"What flavour is it going to be?" He asked her. He looked over at the clock in the kitchen and saw that it was one in the afternoon, about the time he would normally do his homework on a Sunday. "I hope it's vanilla, that's my favourite."

Karla rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know it is dear. It's also Hazel's favourite and I have a feeling we'll be celebrating tonight and my vanilla cake always goes down a treat. Now stop stalling and go and do your homework."

"I'm waiting for Yves to wake up so he can help me."

"Your brother was up early, you know that he always is. He and Xav are out helping your father on the slopes. You really should help out more often, you know."

"Can't. I have homework to do," he grinned. "I'll just have to get Yves to look over my homework, I have to get good grades this year."

"You're intelligent enough without your brother's help, you just need to belie-" She stopped when the doorbell rang and was followed by a timid knocking on the door. "Hmm. Go and answer the door, Zed."

"Why don't you?" He argued. "You're the mom, not me."

"Because it's Bluebell Williamson and she's here to see you," Karla replied. "Go on now." Wondering why Blue was at the door – and excited to see her again – Zed moved at as normal a pace as he could, not wanting to seem too eager. As he walked through the hallway he heard, "oh, and invite over for dinner tonight! Lord knows that girl could do with one of my true Latino meals, get some meat on those skinny bones of hers."

Zed didn't reply. As soon as he reached the front door, he grabbed the handle and swung it open. He took a moment to just look at her and take her in. She had her hair tied up into a messy bun and was wearing jeans and a baggy yellow cardigan over what looked like an old, ratty t-shirt. She had her arms folded across her chest and was looking up at him. She had no make-up on and was even paler than usual, the freckles decorating her face standing out. There were red marks around her eyes and the whites of her eyes were a little bloodshot. Zed's first thought was that she had been crying or had had no sleep; then he realized that after last night she probably had a killer hangover.

He leaned against the doorframe and gave her a lazy smile. "Afternoon, Bluebell. You look rough, let me guess: you've only just woke up and you had a killer headache?"

"Pretty much," she replied with a nod. "Look, Zed. Can we talk about last night? I uhm, I didn't remember anything when I first woke up... But it all came back to me in flashes."

Zed wanted to say: "Of course we can talk. I'll always have time for my soulfinder, I'm so glad that you're finally willingly talking to me." But he didn't. Instead he just nodded his head and stepped outside, closing the front door behind him. He sat down on the porch step and gestured for her to sit next to him. Sitting outside felt more private somehow, even though it was only his mom inside and she'd easily be able to read their minds if their shields weren't strong enough and she was determined to listen. But he knew that she wouldn't do that.

Blue sat next to him and put her hands in her lap, twiddling her fingers for a moment in silence. "I don't know what came over me last night," she said quietly. "I've never really liked partying. Well, I never even got invited to parties before. I'd never even really had alcohol before. I was just angry and upset about something stupid and I thought that drinking would take my mind off it all. It was a mistake to drink so much."

"And making out with Isaac too?" Zed blurted out the question, raising his eyebrows. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No you're right. Isaac was a mistake too. But just for the record, I never kissed him. I was just dancing and letting him kiss my neck," her cheeks blushed a rosy pink colour that Zed thought was adorable. He was happy to hear her admit that she hadn't kissed Isaac; he was so, so glad to know that. "I remember you pulling me away before it went any further; which was great because I didn't picture my first kiss being whilst I was drunk and at a stupid party. And I know that you drove me home." She looked sideways and met his eyes, a small smile on her face. "Thank you, Zed. Really. I can't even imagine what could have happened if you didn't get me out of there. Anyway that's why I came over. To say thank you. I guess that's it really. I should go."

She started to rise to her feet but he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her back down gently. "Wait," he said. "I have something I need to talk you about too."

She settled back onto the step and looked at him questioningly. "Okay," she said slowly. "Don't say anything that'll piss me off though, Zed. Don't ruin the moment."

He laughed, shaking his head in disbelief of the fact she could just say her honest thoughts like that. "I'll try not to... Blue, I know that you saw me and Jodie together-"

"Like I said in the car last night," she interrupted him and looked away. "I don't care if you're dating her," she said in a tone that suggested she was trying to be nonchalant but was having a difficult time of doing so.

"I think you do care," Zed guessed, smiling when she turned to look at him. "You like me and you do care if I date Jodie or not."

"You're wrong. I don't like you and I don't care."

"Yes you do."

"No. I don't," she said in an overly-defensive voice. "Zed, you said that you would try not to ruin the moment. And you've literally just done that."

"Well I'm sorry about that. But I don't understand why you're denying the fact that you quite obviously care. And just for the record, Jodie and I aren't together. She kissed me and I pushed her away. She was drunk, she didn't realise what she was doing-"

"Oh trust me, she knew what she was doing."

"So I drove her home and returned to the party to collect you," he continued, ignoring her snide comment. "Look, I know you don't like Jodie. She can come across as a total bitch but she's had a hard life, Blue. I actually think you two would get along if you tried."

Blue quickly stood up and Zed copied her. "Me and Jodie will never be friends, Zed. I guess that just comes to show how little you know me."

Ouch. That stung. But Zed knew that Blue had a point: he didn't know that much about her, this was all coming from the connection between them the soulfinder bond gave him. He wanted to get know her. But every time it seemed like he was making progress with her, they both said things that destroyed that. It was like taking one step forward and three steps back; they would never reach the finish line of this game – which in their case was a happy ending full of love – if they continued like this. Things _had_ to change. He just didn't know how to make that happen.

As Blue turned around and started to stride over to her own house, he remembered something that gave him an idea of righting things between them. "Blue!" He shouted after her. She stopped but didn't turn around so he guessed that she was listening. "My family's having a dinner tonight and my mom told me to invite you. I know that Victor would like it if you were there. And so would I. You don't have to come but if you want to, just turn up at the house at about seven, okay? You're welcome to join us."

Blue didn't reply and started walking again.

Zed doubted that she would turn up.

* * *

Blue rushed straight up to her bedroom again as soon as she got inside and collapsed onto her bed face-down. She released a frustrated scream into her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut in a refusal to let tears make an appearance. Why did she let Zed Benedict get to her so much?!

She didn't want to care about what type of person he assumed she was; she didn't want to feel overwhelmingly glad that he wasn't dating Jodie; she didn't want to care that they couldn't seem to get along for five minutes without one of them annoying the other. She could admit that he was unbelievably attractive – and boy, didn't he know it – but she never thought she was shallow enough to like him just because of that.

_That's because it isn't the only reason you like him, _a voice at the back of her mind whispered to her. It was true. The fact he'd offered to show her around the school, the way he'd helped her in baseball, how he'd praised her when it came to her running, how he'd wanted a new start and how he'd helped her at the party- all of these were reasons that she liked him. They all showed that there was a good person buried inside of him and she liked that part of him.

But he was also arrogant, stubborn, cocky... He infuriated her and she hated that part of him. She couldn't be bothered dealing with him when he was like that and honestly, she wasn't sure if she could handle that so soon after leaving Rosewood. She shouldn't get involved with him; it was too much too soon for her.

On the other hand however, she felt it deep inside that she should get to know him, at least be friends. Her thoughts about him kept going back and forth, undecided on what to do.

_Ding dong. _The sound of the doorbell ringing made Blue pause her thoughts and sit up. She hoped that wasn't Zed coming around to add something else to their stupid conversation. Knowing that her sisters had gone to the supermarket with her dad, Blue pulled herself off the bed and started to walk down the stairs. _Please don't be Zed, _she wished before she opened the door.

It wasn't Zed. She kind of wished it had been him now; anybody was better than who it actually was.

On her doorstep stood Jon Barker- Blue's biological father. He was dressed all in black, in a t-shirt with short sleeves and a v-neck so it showed off all the tattoos that decorated his neck and arms. His dark hair – which reached down to his waist – was pulled back into a low ponytail and light stubble was on his cheeks; he had all of his facial piercings in and his blue eyes, just a shade darker than Blue's, were looking down at her. He was quite tall with a lean, muscular figure. The last time Blue had seen him was in early February, shortly after her mother was sent to the psychiatric hospital and Jon had visited her in Rosewood to see how she was- she'd told him to leave after just a few minutes and hadn't seen him since.

"Hey Blue," he said in a gravelly voice. "Can I come in for a moment?"

"No," she said stubbornly. "You shouldn't be here. You need to leave, now."

A hurt expression flashed across his face but Blue didn't change her mind. Jon hadn't been in her life much growing up, he hadn't been a father to her at all. He turned up on her birthdays with presents and acted as if everything was all fine and dandy. Although she had Elliott as her dad, part of Blue wished that she had had her real father there and she despised that Jon had deserted her. She didn't want to give him another chance and let him into her life. _Too much, it'd be too much for me to handle on top of everything else._

"Blue, please," Jon pleaded. "I just want to get to know you. I want to be in your life, I want you to be in mine! You have a little brother, he's nine months old-"

"Well then you don't need me, you have a new baby now," she snapped.

"No, that's not what-"

"Jon, I barely know you!" She exclaimed. "You didn't want me, you never did. You think a few birthday presents made everything better? It didn't. Just because you finally want me as your daughter, it doesn't mean that I'm going to forgive and forget. You were never there for me."

"I tried to be. I'll admit that I didn't want you at first but after a while I changed my mind and regretted my decision. I wanted to be a good dad to you but your mother and Elliott wouldn't let me. They would only allow me to see you on your birthdays, that's why I wasn't around any other time of the year. They wouldn't let Blue, I fought so hard for you but they wouldn't let me get close to you."

Blue shook her head. "No. I don't believe you." She couldn't ever imagine her parents, especially Elliott, stopping her from knowing her real dad. They would have wanted the best for her, they wouldn't keep her away from him. She couldn't believe it. "I want you to leave."

"I'm not lying, Blue. I'm sorry, I-"

But Blue didn't get the chance to hear how that sentence was going to finish as she slammed the door in his face angrily, refusing to even consider that he was telling her the truth. A second later, a piece of paper fell through the letterbox. She heard Jon's voice through the door. "I've wrote my phone number and address on there. If you change your mind... Well, you'll always be welcome in my home. I am so sorry for the way things have turned out. I hope you can forgive me one day."

Blue stood on her tiptoes to look out of the peep-hole and watched Jon walk away, get onto his motorcycle and drive away. She watched him until he disappeared out of sight.

* * *

Author's note:

Meh. I'm not that keen on this chapter, it just feels like none of it clicks together in any way, but it's all relevant so I needed it in there. Anyhow, please leave reviews to let me know what you think.

**A hint about the next chapter:** Zed and Blue _finally_ have a chapter where they actually get along without any arguments. Progress at last?


	8. Chapter 8

**15th September 2013**

For reasons that were seemingly beyond him, Blue had turned up at the Benedict house at bang on seven o'clock. Zed had answered the door to her and they had exchanged somewhat small pleasantries but hadn't talked much since.

The food wasn't quite ready yet so most of the family were waiting in the living room, talking amongst themselves and just generally enjoying each other's company and catching up on what they had done during the week. Zed was sat on his own but he didn't mind. He was too busy watching Blue to keep up with a conversation anyway.

She was sat on the floor in front of baby Mark who was laid on a playmat, gurgling away to himself. Gracie was sat next to Blue, talking non-stop to her and simply thrilled to have somebody new here to talk to. But if Blue minded, she didn't show it. Zed remembered Victor once mentioning that Blue used to help out with the children either at or visiting Rosewood and that was evident now: she was brilliant with children, even babies, and was laughing away with Gracie. Zed didn't think he'd ever seen her look so carefree and happy. Maybe it was something to do with children, or maybe it had something to do with the fact that children could never hurt her or constantly disappoint her, he didn't know.

As he watched her, he tried to remember the way her eyes lit up when she smiled, the tinkling sound of her laugh. He was pretty sure he had even memorized every single one of the array of freckles that were spread across the pale skin of her cheeks. He thought she was beautiful and he was shocking himself by how much he didn't want to ever stop looking at her. He had never felt this way about a girl before and it wasn't just because of the soulfinder bond that he was feeling this way, he was sure of it. It was just _Blue_. She was interesting and a mystery to him; a mystery he wanted to figure out.

As if feeling his eyes on her, she looked up and across the room at him. He expected her to frown or tell him to stop staring but she didn't. Instead, she looked a little confused before she smiled at him – just a small smile, not like the ones he had seen her give other people – with warmth. She turned back to Gracie, nodding her head along to whatever the girl was saying.

A grin spread across Zed's face. He knew that she had no idea how much her smiling at him had affected him. It was more than he'd ever gotten from her before so this definitely was an improvement, maybe even a step closer to them being friends. Or even more than friends in the future.

This direction of thoughts momentarily stopped when Karla called them all into the dining room because the food was ready. Being the bossy woman that she was, she told them all which seats to sit in. She looked at Zed as she said, "Blue, you sit right there in between Hazel and Zed please." She winked at Zed with a knowing smile on her face. Zed stopped moving, staring at his mother in disbelief. Did she know that Blue was his soulfinder? He thought he had been careful enough with his thoughts around her but he supposed it was possible he might have slipped up or she might have had a vision. Or could Karla simply tell that Zed was trying hard to get on Blue's good side? "Don't just stand there," she chided him. "Sit down, boy."

Zed did as he was told. Shortly after, they all started eating whilst chatting amongst themselves. Zed kept on casting sideways glances at Blue, wanting to speak to her but not knowing what to say. Deciding an apology was always the right way to go, he took a sip of his apple juice before slightly angling himself in his seat so that he was sort of facing Blue. She sensed the movement and looked at him. "I'm sorry about earlier," Zed said softly. "I shouldn't have presumed things about you like that, it wasn't very nice of me to do so. You were right: I don't know that much about you. But I really would like to. I meant what I said when I said I wanted us to be friends. I still mean it now."

Blue sighed. "Zed we tried that before, remember? And it got messed up after less than a minute or so. Maybe we're just not meant to be friends, we can't be friends with everybody we meet. I can be civil and not argue with you maybe, but I just don't see us getting close or anything."

_No, we're not meant to be friends. We're meant to be more, _he wanted to say but didn't. "I don't believe that," he said instead, shaking his head. "I think we could actually be close friends, we just both need to stop being so stubborn and give it a chance. Everybody deserves a second chance, don't you think?"

Blue was silent for a moment, a frown on her face. Finally she said, "I guess so... Being friends with you wouldn't kill me. But if it doesn't work out this time, I'm giving up because I really can't deal with it. It'd be too much to handle for me."

Zed wasn't quite sure what she meant by 'too much for her' but he didn't press it. Maybe he'd figure it out once he got to know her more, or maybe once they were closer he could ask her. But for now he was going to be cautious and do everything right. "I understand," he smiled. "I'm gonna make it work this time, you'll see."

"Everybody I think Victor has something to announce," Karla said, excitement in her tone. "Go on, Victor."

Victor, who was sat on the other side of Hazel so Zed couldn't see him, cleared his throat loudly. "Well um, as you all know, Hazel and I are expecting twins. We're very excited to be parents but we felt like something was missing, something that made us even more of a family. So... A few days ago I proposed to Hazel and she said yes."

Hazel pulled her hand out from under the table and held her arm out in front of her to show off the big rock on her finger. Karla squealed happily and Georgie leaned forward from the other side of the table to get a closer look at the ring. "Oh it's beautiful!" She grinned. "Congratulations, guys."

Before the rest of the family could also congratulate the happy couple, Uriel stood up. The loud scrape of his chair being pushed back silenced them all and got all of their attention. They all waited with baited breath, hoping Uriel would at least pretend to be happy for them like he had when they announced the pregnancy.

But Uriel didn't look happy, he looked furious. Sensing an argument, Trace quickly stood up with baby Mark in his arms and Georgie copied him, grabbing Gracie's arm. They left the room, not wanting the children to be in the room when it all exploded.

"_Really?!_" Uriel exclaimed as soon as the door shut behind them, directing his words towards Victor as he glared at him. "Are you serious, Vick?! You've never wanted to get married, you always said it was stupid that people needed a certificate and a ring to prove their love. You know that it was me that always dreamed of having kids and getting married, having my own family. It was bad enough that you stole my girlfriend – which, by the way, I'm still not over no matter how hard I try – but now you're stealing the life that I always wanted!"

"Uriel," Saul said in a warning tone.

Uriel ignored him and continued. "It's not fair! I have to see you with the girl I love all the time and I have to pretend that I'm happy because I want to be happy for you both, I do. I want you both to happy. It's difficult on an ordinary day and now I have to have the constant reminder that you're going to get married too?"

"Uriel," Hazel said. Zed could tell even without looking at her that was crying simply from how broken her voice sounded. "We're sorry, Uri. You know that we never intended to hurt you. Please, I don't like seeing you like this-"

"Shut up, Hazel! Just shut up. You have no right to say those things to me anymore, be quiet!"

"HEY!" Victor shouted angrily. "Don't you dare talk to her like that. I am sorry that you are hurting, but this is not our fault. We didn't choose to be soulfinders, we didn't choose to fall in love. It just happened. The last thing we wanted was for you to be hurt. If you remember correctly, Hazel went back to London and we thought we'd never see each other again, just so that you wouldn't be hurt. But you're the one that told me to go after her, you're the one that told us to be together."

"Because I couldn't stand the thought of being the reason my brother couldn't be with his soulfinder!" Uriel had tears streaming down his face now and his body was shaking with emotion. This had all finally become too much for him to handle and he was slipping; the only way for him not to have a breakdown was for his soulfinder to turn up but so far it didn't look like that was happening any time soon. "You know what, congratulations. Really, I'm thrilled for you both," sarcasm dripped from his voice. "I hope you have a great day, whatever day you decide to get married. But just know that I won't be there. I cannot be at the wedding, seeing her say 'I do' to a man that isn't me. I'm not doing it."

"He's your brother," Will said. "You can't just not go to his wedding."

Zed looked over at Blue and saw that she looked like a deer caught in headlights, not knowing what to do in the situation. He rose to his feet and gently pulled Blue out of her seat, gesturing for her to follow him as Uriel started shouting again.

* * *

Sat on the edge of his bed, Zed watched as Blue stood in front of the fish tank and stared at the fish for five minutes as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. Finally, she turned around and said, "Victor never told me he stole your brother's girlfriend."

"It's not as straight forward as that," he replied. "Uriel dated Hazel in university and they got back together when she came over here to be your dad's lawyer. Hazel and Vick realised they were soulfinders but she chose to stay with Uriel. Eventually though, it was just too hard. She never cheated on Uriel and Victor only started dating her because Uriel told him to go for it."

Blue sat down next to him with a thoughtful expression on her face. "If Uriel told them to be together, why is he acting like this? Surely he must have known this would eventually happen."

"Well yeah, but I think a part of him thought that it'd be a while before it happened. I think he was hoping he would have found his soulfinder by then. He knows that Victor and Hazel haven't done anything wrong, but he's still in love with her. I've never been in love so I don't have first-hand experience but I think it could make people do crazy things. Just think about your aunt, all the things she did because she loved your mother. It's a different type of love but it still works as an example."

"That's why I never want to fall in love," she said matter-of-factly. "Every time I've seen somebody in love, it hasn't turned out well. My parents, my mum and her sister, Victor and Uriel. They're brothers, they shouldn't be like this, but they are because they both love the same girl."

"Love isn't always like that. What if you found your soulfinder? Wouldn't you want to know? Wouldn't you want to fall in love with him and be happy with him like you're destined to be?"

She shook her head. "I don't believe in fate and destiny. I hate how people say that soulfinders are meant to be together, like we don't even have a choice. Sure it's great to have a soulmate, but it'd be better if you fell in love with that person without knowing you're soulfinders because then it's your heart that made the choice. You wouldn't feel pressured into it. I doubt I'll ever find my soulfinder but if I do... I'd rather fall in love before I knew that he was my soulfinder. But I'd still be terrified all the time of everything falling apart. Of having my heart broken."

Zed had kind of been having regrets of not telling her the truth about them being soulfinders but now he was suddenly glad that he hadn't. He'd just realised that he had more of a chance with her now, when she didn't yet know about their connection. Choosing his words carefully, he said, "I think if you're soulfinder ever broke your heart, he would be a complete idiot. But truthfully I don't think he ever would, he'd realise how lucky he was and he wouldn't ever let you go."

Blue smiled. "Thanks, Zed. Look, I should probably go. This is, you know, a family issue. Plus I have a ton of homework to get through."

"Okay," he nodded and stood up with her. "Blue, would you like to do something tomorrow? It's teacher training day so school's out. I was thinking maybe we could go skiing, start working on becoming actual friends."

She hesitated for a moment before saying, "I don't know how to ski. I've never been on the slopes."

"You've lived in Wrickenridge your whole life and you've never been on the slopes?" He laughed. "Wow, we have got to change that. We're definitely going skiing tomorrow."

She laughed a little and nodded her head. "Okay. But it'll have to be in the afternoon, I have to be somewhere in the morning."

"Fair enough," he agreed happily. "Come on, I'll see you out."

They left his bedroom and started going down the stairs, stopping halfway when they noticed Victor and Hazel sat on the bottom step. Victor had his head buried in her neck and she had her arms around him, stroking his hair. Victor was crying and Hazel was trying to comfort him. "I just want my brother back," they heard Victor mumble through his tears. "I miss him, Haze. I don't think I can get married if he's not there, it wouldn't feel right."

"Shh, I know sweetie," she said. "It's okay, I know."

All four of the people on the staircase jumped when they heard a glass smash in the dining room and heard Uriel shouting again. Zed sighed. He didn't blame Uriel for being so upset and angry, he wasn't embarrassed of him. He simply felt so sorry for him and wished there was something he could do to make him feel better but he knew that there wasn't.

"Poor Uriel," Blue whispered quietly beside him.

"I know," Zed replied. "He and Victor used to be so close and now... Well, it sucks." He carried on walking down the stairs and Blue followed him, thanking Hazel when she shifted to the side a little to let them past.

After Blue left, Zed went straight back up to his bedroom and put his headphones on, turning the volume of his ipod up. He didn't want to have to hear two of his brothers breaking down emotionally. It was something no brother wanted to hear.

* * *

Author's note: Poor Uriel :( But Zed and Blue finally had a chapter without them arguing, yay!

**A hint about the next chapter:** Zed takes Blue skiing.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's note: The first half of this chapter isn't that exciting, I will admit that. But it is relevant and you learn a little more about Blue's feelings for Zed and why she is the way she is, with the whole back-and-forth thing of a friendship with him.

The second half of the chapter is a little more light-hearted.

Please read and review. xo

* * *

**16th September 2013**

Silence. Silence so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. And then the silence was broken by the _tap tap tap_ of a pen against a notepad and Blue sighed loudly. She looked over from her seat on the leather chair and across the room at her therapist. They were on completely opposite sides of the room, by Blue's choice. Aside from the desk and the chair the therapist sat at, there were nine other chairs in the room, all different sorts. Blue was told to sit on whichever one she wanted and she always wondered if it was some sort of test, whether there was a deep meaning to whichever seat she sat at.

She didn't enjoy her weekly sessions with the therapist. In fact, she hated them. They usually spent the first half an hour in silence and the second talking about meaningless things; the past few sessions they'd talked about her being back at home and how she was fitting in at school. They didn't talk about why Blue had to see a therapist, they didn't talk about Rosewood or whether she missed it or thought of it often.

The therapist met Blue's bored gaze and smiled at her gently. She was a kind woman with grey hair in a pixie cut and her body draped in a wavy bright maxi dress instead of the usual suit. Wendy Bower didn't seem to mind that Blue spent half of the session in silence because she didn't want to talk about herself and her life and for that Blue was grateful. But she knew that they had to talk eventually otherwise the session would be wasted.

"How's school going?" Wendy asked Blue. "Are you still hanging around with Trinity and the rest of the girls?"

"Yes."

"Have you made any new friends?"

Blue hesitated. "Not really."

"Not really?" Wendy picked up on that comment. "You usually answer 'no'. Do you want to explain?"

"Not really," she answered but continued anyway. "I guess I'm kind of friends with Zed Benedict now. I'm not sure, we've just sort of agreed to have a new start. He's teaching me how to ski later."

"That sounds fun," she replied encouragingly. "Are you happy about that?"

Blue sat up straighter. "I think I am. It's better than constantly arguing with him anyway and it's easier. Like I've said before, he lives next door to me and our families are friends. But I still remember all the things that I dislike about him so I'm a little bit cautious about how this is going to turn out. I don't want to get close to him and for things to fall apart again."

"Why not?"

She thought about this for a moment before the answer came to her, surprising her. "Because I want to believe that he's a good person. The good side of him that I've seen so far... Well, I like it. But I don't like the bad side that I've seen. I get this feeling that he understands me more than Trinity or my other friends, is that crazy? We barely even know each other. I just feel this... Connection. Like if I told him everything about myself, he'd understand and he'd be supportive. And I guess I'm scared of something happening that will prove that feeling to be wrong."

"Blue," Wendy spoke softly, "you always have this notion that things are going to turn out the opposite of how you want them. You have a negative outlook on life and I think that it's holding you back. Perhaps you and Zed will be great friends, you'll only find out if you don't give up. Don't shy away from him simply because you're scared of things going wrong. That's your homework for this week: make an effort to make a new friend. Okay?"

Blue nodded. To be honest, talking about Zed with her was making Blue feel a little uncomfortable. She didn't know why. Maybe because she knew that Wendy was right about her holding back from getting close to Zed because she kept thinking of negative possibilities, or maybe it was just that it felt too personal to talk about him which was stupid because she was seeing Wendy to talk about personal things. It was compulsory for her to continue seeing a therapist like she had done at Rosewood, even though it was a financial strain for Elliott to pay the bills and pay the therapist fee.

"Is there anything else you would like to talk about? We still have about ten minutes left," Wendy said without even looking at her watch. There wasn't a clock on any of the walls so Blue didn't know if she was correct but she trusted her- Wendy always had an uncanny ability to know what was left of their time together without even checking her watch.

Blue wanted to say no but her mouth blurted out words before her brain could stop them. "My dad came to the house to see me. My real dad, I mean. Jon."

Wendy tried to hide her shock like a professional would, but Blue still saw a slight raise of her eyebrows. "Really? How did that turn out?"

"Bad. He said that he wanted another chance to be a good dad to me, that he wanted me to meet my baby brother. He said that when I was little he tried being involved but my mum and dad wouldn't let me, they pushed him out and only let him come by on my birthdays. But I don't believe him. My mum and dad would have wanted the best for me, they would have let him see me. I know they would."

"Have you talked to your father about this? Have you told him that Jon came by to the house?"

She shook her head. "No. And I don't plan on doing so any time soon. Jon's lying, he has to be. I don't want that kind of person in my life, I'm not going to start an argument with my dad over something like that."

"Have you thought about the possibility of Jon telling the truth? What if you asked your dad about what Jon said and he confirmed it? How would that make you feel?"

"Terrible," she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It would mean that my parents lied to me ever since they told me Jon was my biological dad. They always told me he never wanted me, that Elliott stepped up and became a dad to me so that I'd have a father figure in my life. I don't know what I'd do if I found out they'd lied to me about something so important, I don't know if I'd be able to forgive them for that. But it doesn't matter, anyway. Jon was lying. And I don't want him in my life."

"Hmm... Blue, I really would like to continue this conversation but I'm afraid it will have to wait for our next session now. Our time is up and I have another client coming in. I promise that we'll talk about Jon in our next session. And remember your homework."

"That's not a promise you have to keep, Wendy," Blue said as she stood up to leave. Wendy laughed in response but Blue didn't; she really did hope she forgot to talk about Jon. She didn't want to dig deep about her feelings relevant to him.

She was scared of what she herself would discover about them.

* * *

Blue was a natural at skiing. If you considered managing to stay on her skis for a whole ten seconds before falling a natural. Zed couldn't tell if she was embarrassed or not. Under the layers of clothes and the black hat she was wearing – an outfit practically identical to his own – she was still freezing cold on the slopes, as was he. Their skin was red from the cold so he couldn't tell if the pink blush on Blue's cheeks was from the cold or the embarrassment. She didn't seem embarrassed. If anything, she seemed angry that she wasn't getting any better and was cursing at herself as she once again struggled to get back up.

"Calm down," he said, reaching a hand down to help her to her feet. "I see people learning to ski all the time, plus I teach a few introductory lessons sometimes. So I can honestly tell you that you're not doing as bad as you think you are, you're actually pretty good for a beginner. Think of it like running: you hated that, until you stopped trying so hard and realised you were actually pretty good at it. Try not to focus so much. You know what to do, so just let your body take over. And don't get angry if you fall."

"Easy for you to say," she grumbled, now steady on her feet and looking up at him. "You're like, really good."

"Well I've been skiing since I was a child," he grinned, "so of course I am. I'm better on a snowboard though, but my brothers hate that. Next time we'll try out snowboarding, you might end up better at that. It's easier to balance on a board than skis. You wanna just walk the rest of the way down the slope and go to the café for a drink? It's only a short way."

She nodded and after they'd took their skis off and were instead carrying them in their hands, they started walking down. At the bottom of the slope, Blue spotted her father working at the ski lift and headed over to him, Zed following close behind her.

Zed stood back for a moment as Blue hugged Elliott. "How was she doing up there?" Elliott asked Zed as he let go of his daughter. "I still think you should have gone onto the slope for children first, at least until she'd got the hang of balance."

"Dad, I was safe with Zed. He wouldn't have let anything happen to me," Blue said, rolling her eyes. Her words made Zed smile, thrilled that she knew that and trusted him to look after her.

"I don't think she needed that," Zed said to Elliott. "She was actually quite good. Well, she fell over a lot and didn't really get the hang of turning that well, but she was better than most beginners. We're snowboarding next time."

"Well I'm glad you both enjoyed yourselves," Elliott said. A group of boys that Zed recognised from school in the year below him came over and the two said goodbye to Elliott so that he could see to the customers.

Connected to the ski slopes, on the other side away from the two houses, was a café, toilets, and a shop where you could buy or rent gear. The café was packed with tourists and kids from school enjoying the day off, but Zed managed to find a free table for two and led Blue over to it.

"I'll go and order our drinks, what do you want?" He asked her as she sat down.

"Um, a hot chocolate please. I can pay for my own though, I don't mind," she answered, looking uncomfortable with the thought of him paying for her drink. "My dad gave me some money in case I wanted anything."

"No, it's fine," he waved a hand in the air. "Honestly. I get employee discount, plus I always get the best stuff because my family own the place," he laughed. "I could probably get it free if I wanted, but this place has to make it's money somehow, right?"

"I guess," she smiled.

He smiled back before walking over to join the long line at the counter. He felt like he was almost walking with a spring in his step he was that happy. It was just such a joy to spend the day with his soulfinder and he was glad that she was finally giving him a chance instead of being overly-sarcastic and bitter towards him. He craned his head around the line of people to look at her and saw her staring out the window with a thoughtful expression on her face. He hoped that she was thinking about how nice it was that they were improving their relationship.

When he finally reached the front of the line, he was surprised to see Jodie on the other side of the counter in the yellow t-shirt that was the café's uniform. By the look in her eyes, she was surprised to bump into him too which was ridiculous seeing as she knew his family owned the slopes. A smile graced her face and she said, "oh hey, Zed."

"Hey, Jodie. I didn't know that you worked here."

"Yeah, it's recent. To help with the college fund," she nodded. "I'm working to get into Stanford."

"That's brilliant," he replied. "Could I have a coffee and a hot chocolate please?"

"Sure." As she set about making the drinks, she continued to talk to him. "So are you going to be at track practice Wednesday? There's a race next week so coach is going to be super hard on us. He's still looking for a twelfth member, we could really do with another person to make our chances of winning higher."

"God, I forgot about the race next week. Maybe I could talk to Blue and try and persuade her to give it another shot," he said his thoughts aloud.

"We don't need Blue Williamson," Jodie said, almost defensively. "She left, that's not a team player. She didn't even enjoy running all that much. Besides, I thought you two hated each other? You're always ignoring each other at school. Why would she listen to you?" She placed the two drinks in front of him and Zed pulled his wallet out of an inside pocket of his ski suit.

He shrugged. "We don't hate each other. We just had a disagreement, that was all. We're friends now. In fact, I've just been skiing with her, she's waiting at a table for me now."

"You're here with Blue?!" The smile faded from Jodie's face as she took the money from him and moved to the till. "But..."

"She's not as bad as you think," he picked up the two drinks. "Just keep the change, it doesn't matter. See you around, Jo." He smiled before leaving her stood in silence as he headed back over towards Blue. He slid into the chair across from her and apologized for taking so long.

They spent a few minutes in silence, sipping from their hot drinks and letting the warmth seep into their cold bodies. Zed was struck by how comfortable they were around each other despite their past arguments and the fact they really didn't know that much about each other, and how he was just so unbelievably happy to be with her. He'd never felt this way about anybody before.

He guessed that was courtesy of the soulfinder bond in part. He knew that she didn't feel they were soulfinders the times they'd spoke telepathically because usually it was the male in the pair that felt the first connection. Sometimes the female felt it instead but that was very rare. And of course there was the case of same-sex couples, in which case only one of them first felt it. So even though he knew that Blue didn't know they were soulfinders like he did, he wondered if she ever thought about _why_ they didn't seem to be able to stay away from each other. Whether she felt a connection and wondered where it came from.

"Zed?" Blue spoke first, her voice timid and gentle. "Can I ask you something?" When he nodded, she continued. "The night of the party... Why were you so mad that I was drunk? And why did you pull me away from Isaac? I mean, I'm glad that you did but still. Was it just because you knew Victor would get mad if he somehow found out you didn't take me home?"

"Well it was partly that," he said slowly. "But also because... I like you, Blue." He met her eyes and smiled sweetly. "I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you. Isaac may be my best friend but that means that I know what he can be like. He's a ladies man, he sleeps around. He would have just pressured you into sleeping with him and then moved on to another girl the next day."

"It's funny, that's what I used to think you were like," she returned.

"There's rumours about me like that going around all the time but none of them are true. I've had girlfriends yes, but I never slept around or cheated on whoever I was dating at the time. I don't like that Isaac's that way, but we've friends for years and I like him for the other side of him. So. Does that answer your question?"

She blushed a little. "Yes. It was just something that had been playing on my mind."

"Okay. Can I ask something that's been playing on my mind now?" He asked. Part of him was telling him not to ask it, that it could ruin the development they'd made today if she took it the wrong way, but he didn't care anymore. He was desperate to know the truth.

"I guess..."

"You kept denying that you were jealous when you saw Jodie kiss me. But I could have sworn I saw a look in your eyes that said differently."

"That's not a question."

He smirked. "Fine. But you have to answer honestly: were you jealous at the thought of me dating Jodie?"

Her light blush spread until her whole face was practically bright red with embarrassment. She took a long sip of her drink and stared down at the cup whilst she answered, refusing to meet his eyes. "I dunno," she shrugged her shoulders. She sighed. "Yeah, I was jealous. I didn't realise I was jealous until I saw her kissing you, and then I felt sick and miserable. I don't know why I was jealous but I was."

She looked up and met his eyes nervously. Zed thought back to the day before and smirked. "You like me."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. I like you. A little bit. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic," he laughed out loud.

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Author's note: Little over 3000 words there, whoo. I normally only aim for at least 2000. Hope you liked it!

**A hint about the next chapter:** Zed and Blue learn more about each other, including what each other's power is.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's note: This is just for people that have not read the message on my profile - Updates will become rather irregular now, I can't promise when the next update will be. I am now back at college and we are already getting a lot of coursework, this year is much more demanding than last year, so of course coursework is a bigger priority than writing fanfiction. I will write whenever I get a chance to but please do bear in mind that I have two other fanfics as well as this one so I have a lot to balance right now.

That doesn't mean I am not still writing! I am still writing, I'm just going to be updating pretty irregularly.

Please read and let me know what you think! Negative or positive, I appreciate all reviews xo

* * *

**21st September 2013**

"Xav, get the hell out of my room!" Zed exclaimed, throwing a cushion in his older brother's direction.

Xav, who was rooting through Zed's wardrobe, looked over his shoulder and used telekinesis to drop the cushion to the floor before it hit him. He turned back to the wardrobe and went back to looking through the clothes. "In a minute," he replied to Zed. "I have a date with this Russian tourist chick tonight, you won't believe how hot she is. And dude," he turned back around. "She has a sister the same age as you. I said you'd come with us, a double date; she refused to go unless her sister went too, some crap about not wanting her to be alone."

This wasn't an unusual occurrence between the two brothers. Out of all seven Benedict boys, Zed and Xav were known as the biggest 'ladies men' of the family; Victor had been enough of a charmer to rival the two but that had all changed since he started dating Hazel. Numerous times the two brothers had gone on double dates with two sisters or friends and considering neither had had a date for a good few weeks now, Zed wasn't surprised that Xav had arranged for a double date. It would get them out the house and let them have a little fun. Normally Zed would jump at the chance of having that, but not anymore.

Zed said, "you can borrow a shirt but you'll have to find somebody else to go with you."

Xav spun around, looking shocked. "Did I just hear you right?" He raised his eyebrows. "Since when did you turn down a date? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Zed put down his history textbook and shrugged. "I just can't do tonight. Too much homework and you know that I can't let myself fall behind this year. Ask Yves, he could do with a date. He doesn't get out enough."

Xav scoffed. "Yeah, you're right. I'm taking this one," he held up a red shirt of Zed's and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Ok, so maybe Zed hadn't told his brother the whole truth. Yes, he really did have homework to do but it wasn't due back until next week so it wasn't necessary that he did it tonight. The truth was, he simply didn't feel right going on a date with some tourist that he'd never met before. Not when his soulfinder was right in the house next door. Why would he go on a date with some other girl when he now had Blue in his life?

They had grown closer this last week, no longer ignoring each other at school. When he didn't have cross country training, he had even walked home with Blue and Daisy. He couldn't lie, he was enjoying being close to her and having her be sarcastic yet nice to him instead of snapping and being stroppy. He was growing accustomed to all her little habits and he found himself constantly trying to make her laugh and smile because seeing her laugh and smile was one of the most amazing things in the world to him.

Zed was suddenly overcome with the desperate need to see his soulfinder, like every beat of his heart was his heart straining to leave him and go find it's other half.

He got off his bed and wandered over to the window, peering out and across at Blue's room. Her white curtains were closed, preventing him from seeing inside the room. Without even barely thinking, just determined to spend his Saturday evening with her, he opened his window as wide as it would go and lifted himself up, swinging his legs outside. He had climbed out of his window and down the tree whilst sneaking out of the house more times than he could remember so this was easy for him. He reached forward and grabbed hold of a branch of the tree, pulling himself forward so that he was sat on the strongest branch that reached from one side to the other, a perfect way to get from his house to next door. He scooted along the branch, making sure to keep a grip on other branches as a support as he went along.

Finally, he got to the end of the branch and was close enough to the other house that he steadily managed to lean forward and knock on the window in succession three times. After just a few short moments the curtains were pulled open and Blue was stood there, looking at him through the window with wide eyes and a look of confusion on her face.

Zed grinned and mouthed, "open the window," to her.

Shaking her head at him in disbelief, she pushed the window open. "What are you doing?" She asked in almost a whispered hiss. "You know, there's a thing called a door. You could have knocked on it so I could let you in that way. It's actually what most people do, believe it or not. I know that a door is a very strange concept that you may not understand but it is actually very simple to use. I can teach you how much better a door is than a window if you'd like."

He rolled his eyes, a grin on his face. "Ha-ha. You never stop with the sarcasm, do you? I used the window because... Well I don't really know why, it seemed like a good idea at the time but now this branch is very uncomfortable so are you going to let me in or not?"

"Fine, fine. Come on," she stepped back so that Zed had enough room to swing himself through the window and into the bedroom. Once steady on his feet, he looked around the bedroom. It was the first time he had actually seen it up close, only having seen glimpses through the window beforehand. The walls were a light blue colour, the entire wall to his right hidden by shelves and shelves of books crammed onto them; some books were even on the floor because there weren't enough room left on the shelves. She had a double bed covered in a purple duvet and an array of fluffy cushions, a desk and stool, a wardrobe painted white, and a rocking chair. The whole room was spotless with not a thing out of place, everything arranged neatly. Even her books seemed to be in alphabetical order.

"I don't think my room has ever been this clean," he joked.

Blue shrugged and wrapped her arms around herself. "I don't like things being messy and out of order. It feels like I'm not in control of it and I don't like not being in control of something."

Zed didn't say anything in reply. It struck him that maybe this was the vulnerable side of her that Victor had mentioned countless times that Zed hadn't yet seen. Was this OCD-ness why she had been at Rosewood? He wanted to ask but was afraid of offending or upsetting her. He looked at her. She was wearing black leggings and a red vest top; the top showed off her jutting collarbone and her shoulder bones sticking out. It gave him a pang in his chest. She was so thin that he worried about her, he really did.

"So what did you want? Why are you here?" Blue asked, lurching him from his thoughts about her weight.

"Oh right, yeah. Well I just wanted something to do for the evening. Xav invited me on a double date with him and some tourists but I turned him down so I thought I'd come over here so you and I could like, hang out or something."

"Why didn't you go on the date?" She asked, not meeting his eyes.

"Didn't feel like it. Why are you bothered?" He asked, smirking.

"I'm not! I was just wondering," she said in a defensive tone. "I don't care if you go on a date or not."

"Yeah you do," his smirk turned into a full-on grin. "Remember, you admitted that you like me so you can't hide anything from me now. But don't worry, I like that you'd be jealous if I went on the date. Plus if it makes you feel any better, I didn't go on the date because I wanted to hang out with you instead."

Blue's cheeks blushed and she smiled. "Oh. Well I wasn't entirely jealous, just a bit... So what do you want to do? We have to stay in my bedroom and be quiet otherwise my dad will wonder how you got in here."

"That's fine by me," he replied. He walked over and settled onto her bed, stretching his legs out in front of him and making himself at home as he patted the space beside him. Blue walked over and sat next to him, crossing her legs and making sure they weren't close enough to be touching. "So, have you thought anymore about asking Elliott if what Jon said was true?" He asked, approaching the subject straight-on but in a cautious tone. Blue had confided in him about Jon's visit a few days ago and although he was happy she was opening up to him, he was sad that she was having to go through all this.

Blue shook her head. "I don't know. I'm not sure what to do. I don't believe what Jon said but it's still there at the back of my mind and old memories keep resurfacing. I remember when Jon would come by on my birthday or at Christmas and my parents wouldn't let Daisy and Poppy meet him, just me. I thought that was weird but didn't think too much about it. Jon always seemed so happy to see me, more than just an uncle would which is what my parents told me he was to me, and he'd stay for as long as he could. He was always so reluctant to leave and I remember him arguing with my parents more than once or twice. One memory just won't leave me alone: it was my ninth birthday and he didn't want to leave and I remember him saying to my parents, 'I should be allowed to have access to see her, you can't keep doing this to me, it isn't fair.' I don't want to believe what he said, I really don't think my parents could lie to me my whole life like that, but..."

"The doubts are still there," Zed finished her sentence for her, nodding his head in understanding. "I know it's hard Blue, but you're not going to start feeling any better about this until you have answers. It's going to keep nagging at your mind. I think you should talk to Elliott and trust him enough that he would tell the truth." To be honest, Zed believed what Jon told Blue about Elliott and Judith keeping him away from her. Not only did he remember overhearing Victor on the phone earlier in the year during Elliott's case, hearing him mention something along the lines of 'he's Blue's real father but she's never looked at him in that way, no matter how hard he tried', but he just had a gut intuition that was telling him that for some reason, what Jon had said was the truth. He hadn't told Blue any of this however as he didn't want to be the one to sway her judgement. He wanted it to be her decision to talk to her father about this. "But if you still don't want to, that's okay," he added, contradicting his first opinion.

"Yeah," she breathed out. "You're probably right. It's just hard. Anyway," she said in an attempt to change the subject. "You know, we don't know that much about each other. We know more than we used to, but still not enough."

Zed grinned, filled with a euphoric feeling that she herself had chosen the topic of them getting to know each other. "I'm an open book, ask me anything."

"Okay. What's your savant power? We never really talk about the fact we're both savants, do we? We've been focusing more on school and normal life things."

Zed nodded his head in agreement. "That's true. Well seeing as I'm the seventh child in my family, I have more than one power like most seventh children do. Firstly, I can read minds- don't worry, I can't really get into your mind that much, you must keep shields up a lot of the time, right?" She nodded with a smile. He continued, "and my second power is the same as my mom's power. I have visions of the future, possible outcomes and events. Sometimes I manage to change the future and prevent that from happening but only if I fully understand what the whole vision entails."

"That's cool! I always wanted to be able to see the future. Daisy has visions of the past by touching a certain object which I always envied her for, but seeing the future would be much better."

Zed laughed. "Trust me, it's not as great as it sounds. It can actually be a huge pain in the ass. Daisy has the same power as my brother Trace by the sounds of it. What's your power?"

"Well I'm one of those rare anomalies; a child that's not the seventh in the family yet still has more than one power, although neither one of my powers are all that impressive."

"I'll be the judge of that. Go on, tell me."

"Fine, fine. Okay, so I can take people's pain away if they have an injury. It's actually not that useful, it's not like I can heal people. If somebody was dying in front of me I wouldn't be able to help them, just take the pain away."

"I think that's really useful," he disagreed with her in awe. "You'd make the last few moments of their life peaceful. Loads of people would want that. I think you're totally underestimating yourself here, that's a really great power to have."

"I guess it's just a matter of opinion," Blue shrugged. "It'd be better if I could take my own pain away too but I can't, I still have to suffer... Anyway, my other power is astral projection."

"Are you being serious?" He raised his eyebrows, staring at her. "Astral projection? As in the power where you can literally have an out-of-body experience and go somewhere else without anyone seeing or hearing you whilst your body stays put in one place?" Blue nodded. "Man, that is awesome!"

"It's boring," she disagreed. "It takes me a while to be able to do it because I have to be in a deep, calm meditation state of mind. And then there's nothing to use it for. I can move objects around but I can't talk to anybody or anything like that."

"You're always so negative about everything," he teased, rolling his eyes. "I think astral projection is pretty cool, you'd be able to spy on people and everything. But whatever, I guess you're entitled to your own opinion. Okay, get ready. Here come even more questions."

That made Blue laugh and they quickly launched into a game of seeing who could ask the silliest questions to get to know the other. They bantered back and forth, enjoying each other. Zed learnt that despite her name and the colour of her bedroom walls, Blue actually hated the colour blue; he learnt that Disney movies were always her favourite ones; she had a weird love for eating marshmallows that were dipped into melted white chocolate before sprinkling it with shredded cheese of all things (Zed was disgusted at this but she insisted it was actually delicious); she once spent an entire week with hardly any sleep and food just so she could finish a Rubik's cube, which Poppy ended up messing up the very next day; she once sat near Dave Grohl on a plane and creeped him out by staring at him in awe practically the entire six hours.

As they talked, she seemed to get more comfortable in his presence. Without either of them noticing it, they had closed the distance between them on the bed until their bodies were leaning against each other and Zed had wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"- So there we were, covered in baking powder, Xav with his foot stuck in the toilet and me holding a goldfish in a plastic bag in one hand and a bloody knife in another, and Will walks in and says, 'Jesus, you actually did it. You know we were only joking, right? That wasn't mom's, that was a fake'. He totally started laughing at us both and we would have gone after him if it weren't for the fact we were so shocked that we'd just gone through all of that for nothing."

Blue burst out laughing and the end of Zed's little tale, the sound of her laugh making him grin. "I can't believe that," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "If I were you and Will and Uriel pulled that prank on me, I would have killed them." She looked up and saw him staring down at her. She frowned a little at him, looking confused. "What? Why are you staring at me like that? Do I have something on my face or something?"

Zed felt like he had stepped out of his body and he wasn't in control of himself anymore, the soulfinder bond and his feelings for her were controlling him. Instead of answering her, he reached his free hand up to cup her cheek in his palm, registering her light gasp before he leaned down and kissed her.

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**A hint about the next chapter:** Blue has a few decisions to make and Zed gets himself in trouble at school.


	11. Chapter 11

**21****st**** September 2013**

You know those kisses you read about in romance novels? The ones that make the characters' hair stand on end and give them tingles on their skin, that make their hearts race and their blood pound and gives them a shiver down their spine? The kisses that make them feel like all the troubles of the world don't exist and nothing is more important than that moment right there and the person they are with?

Well... That wasn't what Zed and Blue's first kiss was like. Oh, that was exactly how Zed wanted and had imagined their first kiss to be like, sure. But in reality the kiss was far too short for either of them to even start feeling all that. It was over in just a few short seconds, long enough for Zed to feel how soft her lips were against his own, so fragile and warm, before her lips left his as she pulled away.

Zed blinked his eyes open, having shut them as soon as their lips touched, and looked at Blue. Her face was an even paler white that usual – if that was even possible – and she resembled a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. For a moment Zed had no idea why she'd reacted that way, why she'd pulled away and didn't look thrilled that they had finally kissed, finally took the next step in their relationship. But then he remembered: they weren't in a relationship and she didn't know how magical the kiss should have been because she didn't know they were soulfinders. _Stupid, stupid, _he thought to himself. _This is what you get for not telling her the truth straight away instead of making up excuses not to._

"Blue..." He started, unsure of whether or not he should apologize or just try and make a run for it to avoid a confrontation.

"Wh- what did you do that for?" She stammered, wiggling out from under his arm and shifting to get off the bed. Zed quickly copied her, and moved around the bed to stand in front of her. Blue took a few steps back as a response to his movement. "You shouldn't have done that."

Her words made Zed know exactly how to reply instead of running away. Despite feeling so hurt about her negative reaction, he also felt angry about it. Zed had always been one to let his anger get the best of him and although this was his soulfinder, this was no exception to him not controlling his anger. "Oh shut up," he snapped, rather rudely. "Why are you acting like I did a terrible thing? I know you have feelings for me, you've already admitted that so don't even try and deny it. So I kissed you. So what? Is that really such a bad thing when we clearly like each other and we enjoy spending time together? What's the big deal?"

Blue bit her lip and shook her head before saying, "you don't understand," in a shaky voice.

"You're right: I don't understand," he replied. "So please, Blue. Please explain to me why you see me kissing you as such a bad thing? Because that's not how I see it. I'm not going to apologize and I don't regret it. I liked kissing you. _A lot_. Help me understand what you're feeling, Blue."

Blue met his eyes and it wasn't hard for him to see the tears in hers. "Well for one, that was the first time anybody's ever kissed me and that's not how I pictured my first kiss. I wanted it to be special, a kiss that I wanted and was ready for, not a kiss that took me by surprise. It might sound silly but it kind of hurt my feelings that you just kissed me without thinking about whether or not that was what I wanted. You spoiled my first kiss for me, Zed. And secondly... Yeah, I like you. But I don't know whether I want to act on that, whether I want us to be more than friends. And I'm not entirely sure that's what you'd want either if you really knew everything about me. It's not that I think the kiss was a terrible, terrible thing. It's that the timing was wrong and I wasn't completely certain it's what I wanted. Surely you can understand that?"

A wave of guilt washed over Zed but he refused to let it make him weak about the subject. "I do understand, sort of," he said softly, taking a step towards her and feeling relieved when she didn't try to move away from him again. "I'm sorry that I spoiled your first kiss for you. I wasn't thinking about any of that, I was just thinking about how much I wanted to kiss you. And I guess that was selfish of me. But Blue... I have no doubts in my mind about wanting to be more than friends with you, I'm not gonna hide that from you anymore."

"God, this is all crazy," she said in despair, sitting down on the edge of her bed. "Never in a million years did I think that the popular ladies man of the school, Zed Benedict, would be in my bedroom admitting that he wanted to be in a relationship with me. You know, since we started hanging out and getting along I kind of had thoughts of this happening, never actually thinking it would. But that doesn't change anything."

Zed sat next to her, angling his body to face her, and took one of her hands in his own. "What do you mean by that? What's the problem?"

Blue sighed. "The problem is that you don't know everything about me and I'm scared that if you did, you wouldn't want me anymore. Plus... I'm not sure if I want to be with you in that way. No offence but you've got anger issues and you can't control them yet, Zed. And I have to think of myself: I don't think I could be in a relationship with someone like that, it wouldn't be good for me. A friendship is shaky enough right now, taking it further would just... I don't know, I just don't think I'd be able to handle it."

Zed felt like shouting at her for being so stupid but deep down he knew that that wasn't the problem. She wasn't being stupid at all; she was simply just looking out for herself. And he knew that she had a point about his uncontrolled anger issues and he agreed that it wouldn't be good for her to date somebody like that. But _this was Blue_ and he didn't want to give up on her even though he knew that would be the easiest thing. _Sometimes taking the easy way out isn't the right thing to do, _he thought to himself. _Sometimes you have to struggle with the hardest way because in the end that's how you'll get the thing that you want the most. _

So he didn't give up and drop the subject. He argued with her. "Honestly, Blue? I think that's a load of bullshit and you know it. How do you know that we won't be good together if you don't even give it a try? I want you. And that's not going to change because of a few secrets that you haven't told me yet. You never know, me being with you might make me less angry and give me something to hold onto in my thoughts when I am angry so I can control myself and not lash out. Did you ever think of that? We are meant to be together and I'm not going to let you throw that away because you're too scared. That's a pathetic excuse."

To say that Blue looked startled would have been an understatement. Clearly she had been expecting him to understand where she was coming from, expecting him to turn around and say that it was okay and they could stay friends for a while before thinking about being together. She'd expected him to at least temporarily give up on the idea of them being a couple. She frowned, looking lost for words. After a long moment, the only words that she managed to say were: "you don't know that we're meant to be together. We're just teenagers, Zed. We have our whole lives ahead of us, this is probably just a silly teenage crush. We both have soulfinders out there somewhere so even if we did start dating, it wouldn't last forever. We're not soulfinders so it's probably best for us to just stay friends."

Another excuse. He wished she'd stop blurting them out, even if she did think that this excuse was a pretty valid one. To be honest, this whole confrontation was tiring him out and he could think of nothing else to say other than the truth. He pictured himself telling her and her responding by apologizing for doubting them and throwing her arms around him, kissing him without hesitation. That would be the perfect outcome, exactly how soulfinders should react when they find out they're with their soulfinder. So he did it. He told her.

"That's not true. I know for a fact that we're meant to be together because we're soulfinders, Blue. I've known it since that first cross country training when we argued in the woods about Jodie. I tried to tell you then but you cut off the link and blocked your mind from me... I knew it the moment you spoke to me telepathically. You have no idea how amazing and special and mesmerizing it was. I didn't tell you after that because you hated me then, you would have ran a mile away from me if you knew. So I thought I'd wait until I could prove to you that I'm good for you and wait until you genuinely liked me so neither of us felt like it was forced because of the soulfinder bond. So you see, we _are_ meant to be together. It wasn't wrong for me to kiss you and I won't let you convince yourself we should just be friends." He breathed out loudly, feeling like he'd been somehow holding his breath the whole time. He closed his eyes and waited. Waited for her to kiss him and express how happy she was. But that didn't happen.

He slowly opened his eyes and noticed that Blue's eyes were fresh with tears. But she didn't look upset. She looked furious. Through clenched teeth she hissed, "you knew we were soulfinders this whole time and you didn't tell me?"

"You would have freaked out, Blue, don't deny it!" He was quick to defend himself, part of him glad that he had finally told her and the other part terrified that he had now ruined things. "I know I should have told you, you deserved to know. But at least you know that you aren't just feeling things for me because of the bond, that your feelings are real."

"That doesn't change the fact that you lied to me," she argued.

"Please," he begged, giving her hand a desperate squeeze. "Just please give me a chance, don't push me out. I can control my anger, I'll prove to you that we're good for each other. And I can help you with whatever issues you're keeping secret from me, it'll be a balanced relationship just like everyone should have with their soulmate. Come on, just give me a chance. Give _us_ a chance."

She was silent for at least one minute, obviously contemplating her answer and the best way to word it. Zed hoped for the best but he noticed the saddened, lost look in her eyes and knew that her answer wasn't going to be yes. He hated that he had been the one to make her get that look in her eyes. She pulled her hand out of his grip before she answered with a gentle shake of her head. "I don't know, Zed... It's not just about the fact that you lied to me or about your anger problems. You don't know about my problems, why I went to the rehab centre, and there's a reason I haven't told you about that. And I don't know if I'm ready for a relationship, God a part of me isn't even sure if I'm ready to be out of the centre. I just need some time to think this through, I'm sorry."

Zed could tell that she was stressed and he didn't blame her. Not only did she have a decision to make about all of this, but she had to decide whether or not to join the cross country team (which was only a relatively small decision compared to her other problems but was something she was still uncertain about), and she had yet to decide what to do about the whole Jon and Elliott situation. He knew it was hard for her but he was thankful that she was at least thinking about it instead of just shutting him down straight away.

"I understand," he said with a sad sigh. "You don't have to apologize for not knowing if you're ready or not. But just so you know, I'll be impatiently waiting for your answer and whenever you're ready to tell me your secrets I'll be right there, okay?"

She smiled at him. "Okay. Thank you, Zed."

He forced a smile onto his own face despite the fact that his heart was trembling with the fear of rejection. It was something he'd never experienced, nor did he think he ever would experience it, and he didn't like the feeling. But Blue needed him to be strong and accepting and supportive right now, so he didn't let her know his true feelings. He simply acted like everything was okay even though he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that said this was the start of everything falling apart.

* * *

**23rd September 2013**

Zed left the changing rooms and quickly rushed across the field to where the rest of the cross country team were already doing the usual warm up and stretching routine. Coach Miller cast him a glare for being late as he joined the back of the group, standing next to Isaac, but didn't say anything as Zed started stretching out his legs.

"Hey," Isaac whispered, nudging him with his elbow. "Looks like your new little friend decided to join us after all."

Zed looked in the direction Isaac nodded his head and was surprised to see Blue stood at the front of the group with Trinity and a few others. "I'm glad," he answered honestly. "We need her on the team, she's better than most of us here."

"Okay guys," Coach talked above them, addressing the whole group as they began to jog on the spot. "The line-up. As you all know, you get put in a certain order depending on your ability. If you're last in the line, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're the worst and that you're going to lose, it just means that in training you weren't as fast and stealthy as the others. If you work hard, your position could be changed. As it could if you don't work hard enough." Zed of course already knew this. With twelve people on the team (well that's what they were supposed to have had but only now did), the top six runners were always the ones that got the most attention and were expected to be amazing and get great times. For a while now Zed had been first, with Trinity second, Isaac third, Bekah fourth, Jodie fifth, and his friend Jace sixth.

"We're going to have a few changes to the line-up this season, at least for the first race. I might consider changing it for the second depending on your performance Friday," Coach continued, eyes glancing over them. "So, our top six will be in this order on Friday: first up will be Zed," he started, causing a smile to spread across Zed's face. He loved being the lead runner for the group and was extremely happy that hadn't changed. "Second will be Trinity. Then we have Jace third. Isaac fourth. Lucas fifth. And our sixth runner will be Blue."

Jodie was the first to react to the line-up. "Are you freakin' kidding me?!" She shouted, looking furious. "I'm not in the top six anymore? Coach, that isn't fair. I've been on this team for _two years_. Blue didn't even want to be on the team and suddenly she's in the top six? That doesn't even make sense! I deserve a place in the top six!"

The thing about Coach Miller was that if you angered him by speaking back to him, he wouldn't shout at you. And that's what made him so terrifying. He somehow remained to stay cool and keep his voice level as his hands tightened on his clipboard and his eyes narrowed at Jodie, giving her a mean glare. "You know, it's not always just about performance on the course. It's about your attitude. And in recent weeks Jodie, I haven't seen you being a team player; you've been teasing people and undermining your teammates. Plus, the truth is that the top five have had better times than you and although Blue hasn't had a time recorded, I'm giving her a chance based on what I've seen so far. Like I said, I might change my mind after Friday but right now you aren't in my mind for a switch to the top six." He looked away from her and at the rest of the group, saying, "you know what I always say: a team that runs together gets punished together. For Jodie's childish outburst just then, I want all of you to give me 30 push-ups. Now."

A collection of groans rang out amongst the group but none of them even dared to argue back with him, including Jodie who had blushed bright red and was one of the first to drop to the floor. Zed truly felt sorry for her, even if he did admit that she'd made a mistake by snapping at Coach like that. Jodie was dedicated to running and really did put a hell of a lot of effort into it, especially at actual races when she knew her parents were on the sidelines watching. Her parents put a lot of pressure on her for this and for her academics. He himself sometimes felt pressured by his family when it came to the Savant side of things so he could relate to what Jodie was feeling. Despite this, he didn't think it was fair of her to say that Blue didn't deserve this because Blue was actually a really good runner and was a good thing for the team. Jodie was a friend but Blue was his soulfinder so it was obvious who's side he was going to take.

"Hey," Isaac said quietly as they worked on their push-ups, breaking Zed out of his inner monologue. "You know what I'd like to see? A bitch fight between Jodie and Blue. In the mud. With hair pulling and face slapping, the lot. How hot would that be?"

Zed simply rolled his eyes, used to hearing this kind of stuff from Isaac. Jace, who was on the other side of Isaac, laughed out loud. "Man, that's something I'd like to see too. We could take bets on who would win. Jodie's tough but if what you told us lot in the changing rooms is true Isaac, then I think Blue would win. She sounds like she's feisty enough."

"What's that?" Zed asked, freezing and holding himself up with his arms straight. "What are you talking about?"

"Apparently," Jace said with a grin, "before you turned up at Isaac's party, he took Blue upstairs to his bedroom and had a little fun with her, if you know what I mean. Isaac was telling us and the rest of the guys all about it. According to him, Blue's hiding a feisty, sex addict under that good girl act. We were all saying that based on that, it wouldn't surprise us if she lost all that weight so she'd be attractive and only came back here because she ran out of guys to fuck out of town." He and Isaac started to laugh.

Zed's vision started to shake as everything turned red. He slowly rose to his feet, ignoring Coach telling him not to stop, and grabbed hold of Isaac to pull him to his feet too. He was only barely aware of the rest of the team getting to their feet and looking at the two boys to see what was going on. Because clearly something was going on, not just the two of them being too lazy to do their push-ups. "Dude, what the hell?" Isaac exclaimed, taking a step back.

He looked scared and Zed was glad. He _should_ be scared. He knew what Zed was capable of when he was angry and he was about to get the full force of that. Zed grabbed hold of Isaac's shirt at his neck, clenching tightly and pulling his friend towards him. "Is it true?" He asked in a quiet and menacing voice. "Did you say that about Blue?"

Isaac shrugged, trying not to look so shaken up. "Well it's true," he spat out. "I had sex with Blue and she was a feisty little thing. What's it got to do with you? Get the hell off me!" He tried and failed to break free of Zed's grip.

"You're a fucking liar! Blue's not the kind of person to do shit like that, even when she's drunk. Who do you think you are, telling all the guys that? I mean, I know you can't actually get girls to fuck you these days but making up lies like that is really pathetic. Even for you, Isaac."

"What's your problem?" Isaac responded. "It's only Blue Williamson, the one with the murderer father. We always used to take the piss out of her and you never told us to stop. You never cared then. And I might not be lying, did you think of that?"

Zed laughed but there was no humour in it. "Of course you're lying. You've got nothing better to do, have you? And of course you'd choose Blue to make that stuff up about because she's weak and you took advantage of that."

"Dude, it's not my fault she's such a slut and you can't see that because you're in love with her or something," Isaac smirked as if he was purposefully trying to wind him up.

That was it for Zed; Isaac had pushed him too far. Up until then he had managed to reign in most of his anger but hearing somebody talk about his soulfinder like that made him lose control and the mental rubber band that had been straining to keep in the anger snapped under the pressure. And so did Zed. He let go of Isaac's t-shirt and shoved him backwards with enough force that the other boy fell to the floor. Before he could even start to move, Zed was on top of him, pulling back his arm and launching a tightly clenched fist into Isaac's face. All he could see was Isaac's bloody face and all he could hear was Isaac's moans of pain. That gave him a rush of energy throughout his body and his arm pulled back again with the wave of desperation his entire being had to punish the person who dared to speak about his soulfinder like that. It was instinctual for him and he didn't care that this was supposed to be his best friend. _Blue comes first now, _he thought as his fist smashed into the side of Isaac's face again, connecting with his nose and causing something to crack.

He managed to get another good few punches in before he felt three people – he didn't bother to pay attention to who it was – struggle to pull him off Isaac. As he took a step forward to go back to Isaac, Coach Miller stood in front of him to stop him.

"You idiot," he hissed at Zed. "You couldn't have saved it until you got off school premises?! You know that the punishment for this might be that you can't run on Friday, well done Benedict. Jace and Lucas, help Isaac to the first aid room. And you," he poked Zed in the chest roughly, "get your ass to the headteacher's office. Now." He turned around and started walking away to where he'd apparently thrown his clipboard and stopwatch on the floor, mumbling to himself. "Stupid teenage boys with their stupid testosterone. Of course it would be over a girl, when is it ever not? God I hate my job," were the words Zed heard before Coach was too far away for him to hear.

Zed spun around on his feet and began to walk away from his team and in the direction of the school building. He knew he was going to get in trouble but honestly, he couldn't care less. Isaac got what he deserved for talking such bullshit.

"Hey!" Somebody grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him to a stop. They let go as he turned around and realised that Blue was stood there. "What the hell is wrong with you? You can't just go around beating people up like that!"

"Seriously? Do you have any idea what he was saying about you, Blue?" He asked, still shaking with anger.

"Yeah, I heard them talking about it before we started warming up. There's nothing I can do about it other than deny it and I'm fine with that. I know the truth, that's all that matters to me. Isaac lied, yeah, but you can't just launch yourself on him like that. Like Coach said, you might not be able to run Friday. Plus that is not going to help you control your anger issues, is it? I don't want to see you get in trouble, Zed," she said earnestly.

"I was just sticking up for you," he defended himself. "I couldn't stand to hear him say those things about you or to actually think people believe him. It's not fair on you for people to call you those sorts of names."

Blue didn't look like one of those girls who love being rescued by boys and love the guy to defend their honour. She was frowning at him and she looked as angry as he felt. "I don't need you to stick up for me, I can look after myself! And I've had enough experience with people calling me names, I know not to let it get to me anymore."

"Blue-"

"And _don't you dare_," she continued as if he hadn't spoken, "call me weak ever again. Trust me, from what I've been through, I am far from being weak. I'm strong and I don't need anybody to fight my fights for me. Stop underestimating me and thinking I'm not as strong as you are because I _am_."

She stormed away from him, back towards the group, before he could have a chance to reply. He still didn't regret beating Isaac up but he hated that he had made Blue mad and wasn't making any positive progress at getting her to be his. Part of this he knew was because he kept thinking of her as being his when it was actually the other way around: he was hers, always, even if she didn't want him.

Planning on apologizing, he took a step in her direction but didn't get any further before Coach shouted, "Zed! Get to the headteacher's office, I'm not going to tell you again!"

With a sigh, he cast one last glance at Blue – who was pointedly ignoring him with her back facing him – before turning around and again walking in the direction of the school building.

* * *

Author's note: So... Quite a lot happened in that chapter, huh? And the emotions were all over the place. I was going to split it into two chapters but it was already written so it was easier to post it as one chapter.

There's just over 4900 words there and I aim for 2000, so this is pretty long for me. I spent about three days working on it so I would really appreciate reviews and feedback.

Thank you so much for still reading and understanding that I have to put college first now. I hope you like this chapter and it was worth the wait! :)

**A hint about the next chapter: **Zed tells his parents about Blue being his soulfinder and gets a little pep talk from one of his brothers.


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